


'til Death do us part

by ilse_writes



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier-centric, M/M, Recovered Memories, Repressed Memories, Sassy Stanley Uris, Scary Clowns, Stanley Uris Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 24,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24127768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilse_writes/pseuds/ilse_writes
Summary: Getting married was not an item on Eddie's to do list until Myra put it on there. Now it's there, with thousands of sub items to take care of; all neat little boxes waiting to get crossed off. There is only one problem: Eddie doesn't know he already ticked off the 'get married' box years ago.Excerpt:Wedding proposals can be big and romantic, very small and intimate, or anything in between. You could take your beloved up for a ride in a hot air balloon, hiding the ring in the picnic basket. You could get down on one knee on a stage, watched by thousands of people who cheered for you. You could take them to your favourite spot in the park and declare your love right then and there. Or just propose after dinner in your own home, finding a quiet moment to tell them you want to be with them forever. Eddie guessed it depended on the couple: everyone did it in a way that suited them. You could say the way it went down for him, fitted them as a couple.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 4
Kudos: 42





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> There are a couple of things you should know before we begin.
> 
> 1\. I wrote this story for the Open Novella Contest over on Wattpad. The contest prompt I used is this one: _We regret to inform you that you have been engaged. We wish you the best of luck with your new spouse._
> 
> 3\. In order to work a gay wedding into the story, I had to take some liberties when it comes to the timeline. I roughly used the It: Chapter 2 timeline, with some weird loop that brings the legalisation of gay weddings forward (quite a bit). Though, let's face it, that can never be a bad thing.
> 
> 4\. This story has a very open relationship with canon. A 'let's see other people' kind of open relationship. But that's what makes it fun! 
> 
> Here we go!

Wedding proposals can be big and romantic, very small and intimate, or anything in between. You could take your beloved up for a ride in a hot air balloon, hiding the ring in the picnic basket. You could get down on one knee on a stage, watched by thousands of people who cheered for you. You could take them to your favourite spot in the park and declare your love right then and there. Or just propose after dinner in your own home, finding a quiet moment to tell them you want to be with them forever. Eddie guessed it depended on the couple: everyone did it in a way that suited them. You could say the way it went down for him, fitted them as a couple. 

They were in bed, a little after 10 pm. Myra liked to be in bed by 10, lights out at 10.30 precisely. She would do some light reading, with Eddie next to her with his crossword puzzle.   
"We should get married," she said suddenly, putting her magazine down in her lap. 

"What's that, dear?" Eddie said, too engrossed in his puzzle to really process her comment. 

"Get married, Eddie-bear!" She smiled at him, her face shiny because of her extra moisturizing night cream. Her hand found his arm, squeezing lightly. "It’s a logical continuation of our relationship, don't you agree?"

Eddie put his crossword puzzle down, clipping the pen on the corner of the little book. "I guess, yes,” he answered slowly. It made sense, they had been together for nearly fourteen years now. They wouldn't be the first of their friends to get married, in fact, they would be the very last couple to tie the knot. He didn’t know why he was almost 40 before the topic of marriage came up for the first time. It just never seemed relevant before; he simply didn’t think about it and he couldn’t recall hearing Myra about it before either. They had their life in order, their moderate wealth and assets neatly divided and mentioned in their wills, with a joint checking account that they both contributed to for their shared expenses. Marriage was a romantic institution, one that Eddie not directly associated with his relationship. And now Myra brought it up. He put his reading glasses down to the side, on top of his puzzle book. "Do you want to get married?"

He didn't really mean for his words to be  _ the _ question, but Myra beamed, said "Yes, Eddie-bear, yes!" and kissed him firmly on the mouth. Her face cream tasted very bitter. "You’ll have to call your mother first thing tomorrow, to tell her the good news!"

A couple of minutes later, when they were settled side by side underneath their own blankets, Eddie turned over to look at Myra. She was lying on her back, her sleep mask covering her eyes. She was his fiancée now, he thought, mulling the seven letter word over. Hussle some letters up and it spelled finance; somehow that word had the same sentiment to him. "Myra, dear?" he said quietly, though he knew from her breathing she wasn't asleep yet. "Wouldn't you like a proposal with a ring?" 

"Don't be silly, Eddie," she answered without removing the sleep mask. "You don't have to waste money on an engagement ring. We'll be married in a few months anyway."

That night Eddie dreamt of a red ring pop on his finger and a barn underneath a star filled sky. He didn’t remember his dream the next morning.


	2. Blue skies and pink suits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Real men wear pink.

Myra wanted a simple wedding. A large event, with over a hundred guests who partied until the early hours wouldn’t be their style, she said. “You’re too delicate for shenanigans like that, Eddie-bear.”  
Eddie let it slide; he didn’t see himself partying deep into the night either. Last time he did that, he was in college, if playing DnD with some people from his dorm counted as partying. He stayed away from the frat house parties, basically from any party that involved red plastic cups and a keg. The older he got, the more sophisticated - or domesticated - the parties got. He wouldn’t even call them parties. It was just a gathering of their friends over dinner, followed by the women drinking wine in the kitchen, while the men gathered in the living room to drink wine or something stronger. Eddie never drank more than three glasses of red wine; any more and his cheeks and nose would get flushed and that would set off a worried Myra, thinking he might have rosacea.  
She wanted a small wedding at city hall, followed by a lunch at that restaurant by the park that had a big reception room in an old greenhouse. “Don’t worry about your allergies, Eddie. I will have them remove all plants in bloom.”

The girl that showed them around the place assured them that succulents were all the hype nowadays and that they could decorate the room with paper garlands. She didn’t know if the decorations they stocked were made from recycled materials, but she would certainly look into it. 

While Myra made a fuss about the possible use of glitter - “It scratches my Eddie’s delicate skin” -, Eddie wandered idly around the room. It really was a nice space, the large windows encased in green, metal window frames with floral ornaments in the corners. The old green paint flaked a bit at some points, yet Eddie found that added to the charm of the room and he pushed down the thoughts about health hazards like lead poisoning. He liked the deep green; it was an old-fashioned colour, fitted for metal fences with decorative curls, or art deco windows like this. His gaze was drawn upwards, where the roof was made of glass panels. It was a clear day, the sky unusually blue for New York standards. Eddie happily noted that from this angle he couldn’t see all the high rises that surrounded the park. The blue, open sky distantly reminded him of his years in the small town of Derry, Maine. He barely remembered a thing from his years there, even though they didn’t move away before he was almost nineteen. He didn’t have any connections with the small town anymore; he vaguely remembered most of his friends moved away too, there was nothing left for him there. Still, Eddie couldn’t help but feel a tinge of sadness, almost like longing, when looking at those blue skies above him. 

He stood still, his head tilted up towards the vast blue. There was something there, a feeling, a memory, too fleeting to grasp. Unconsciously he spread his arms a bit, palms open, as if he wanted to soak up the view. The sun wasn’t strong enough yet this early in the year to truly warm him through the glass panels, though he knew it wouldn’t be long before her rays would reach him. The thought of soaking up the warm sun made the flimsy memory a little firmer and he spread his arms more, like he did in the memory. He was lying down on a green hill, scrawny kid limbs spread out wide, his jacket propped up underneath his head and shoulders so bugs couldn’t crawl up in his neck. He was looking up at the sky, feeling… ‘free’ seemed to be the correct term for it. That strong sense of freedom you only experience in your childhood. “Must have been the first day of summer break,” Eddie mumbled to himself, closing his eyes to savour the memory. 

“Eddie? What are you doing?” Myra’s sharp voice punctured his thoughts like a balloon. “Come take a look. Do we want white or green chair covers? I’m thinking white, the green -”

Even though Myra insisted their wedding should be a small affair, there were still tons of things to discuss and to arrange. Not that Eddie had a big say in that; it’s mostly Myra and his mom that did the planning. His mother also took him shopping for a wedding suit. Eddie suggested getting a tailored suit, but his mother said something off the rack would fit him just fine. He bought his suits for work at Macy’s, so he figured she was right.   
They went to one of the bigger department stores, where his mother bullied a sales employee to get them suit after suit after suit. Sonia Kaspbrak turned most of them down; either they made his skin look sickly pale, or the weave of the fabric was wrong and don’t let her get started on the horror that was synthetic fabric. 

Eddie tried to drown out her voice with white noise, something he had gotten quite good at over the years. He remembered doing the same with music when he was in his teens. If he turned up the collar of his polo shirt it would hide the headset low in his neck, if he took care to keep his head turned away from his mother. He can’t remember the exact music he listened to, but he knows it was from playlists and tapes he didn’t put together himself. A friend must have given them to him.

The search for the perfect suit was a hard one. If his mother didn’t shoot down the suit, he did it himself because of the ill fit. However, after almost two hours of fitting almost every suit in the store, he finally found something promising. He looked at himself in the mirror, smoothing his hands down the jacket of the suit he was currently wearing. It was a light shade of salmon pink, a very daring choice of the sales girl, one she brought out when his mother was off to use the restroom. Eddie made sure to hide it in his dressing room before she returned. The colour reminded him of the pastel coloured polo shirts he used to wear in high school and college. He’d always favoured the pink ones, for as long as he could remember. Myra’s influence drove the pink out of his wardrobe, leaving only the blues and greens. But the colour of this suit spoke to him, it felt right.  
The suit had an Italian fit, which worked well on his smaller frame. He turned from side to side in front of the narrow mirror, admiring himself. He looked good. He wore a white dress shirt that came with one of the other suits, one that had a woven in pattern of small diamonds. It worked well with the pink suit. He tried to imagine a tie that would go with the outfit, but his mind came up short.   
“Excuse me, miss?” he said, pulling the curtain of his dressing room to the side so he could step out. “Do you have a tie that goes with this suit?”

“I’m sure we do, sir. Let me take a look -”

“Eddie, no! What are you thinking?” his mother called out from the chair she was sitting in. She put her handbag down from her lap and got up, shaking her head as she walked up to him. “That is no suit fitted for a wedding! It looks like you are visiting a Miami beach party!”

He doubted his mother knew what people wore to beach parties in Miami. Probably not a full suit in wool and linen mix.  “It’s from the wedding line of the store, mom,” he said. “So it’s fitted for a wedding alright.” He straightened out the lapels of his jacket. “Besides, I like it. It looks good on me.”

The girl that froze when his mother aired her disapproval of the suit, nodded her agreement from behind Sonia Kaspraks back. Eddie gestured for her to get a tie and she turned on her heels, hurrying off to find him a suitable necktie, while his mother kept on verbally disapproving the suit.

Eddie didn’t often put his foot down with his mother, or his future wife, but on this he did. The sales girl got him a tie that complimented the suit and the shirt perfectly and Eddie really, really liked what he saw in the mirror. He went home with the suit in a wardrobe bag, feeling very pleased about something for the first time during this whole wedding planning business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> By the way, this is my first fic for the It / Reddie fandom. I hope it doesn't show too much ;-)


	3. An administrative snag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plot comes into play.

It happened when he came home from work on a thursday night. He just sat down on the chair next to the more decorative than practical hall table to untie his shoes, when Myra stormed into the hallway, looking very upset. “I couldn’t register for our marriage license today!” she exclaimed without greeting, voice doing that high, terse thing that came out when she was distressed.

“Oh?” 

“And I think you know why!” Red spots appeared on her cheeks.

Eddie frowned, letting go of his shoelaces. “I do?”

“You are already married!” she suddenly wailed, her eyes filling up with tears. 

Eddie’s face involuntary did this weird thing you do when you want to laugh, but you know it is not the proper thing to do at that moment. And laughing when your fiancée tells you you are already married, is most certainly not appropriate, not even when the accusation is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard. He schooled his face and stood up, walking up to Myra to tentatively cup her elbows in his hands; they were not that big on touching. She hid her face in her hands, already reverted to ugly sobbing. “Myra, dear,” he said in what he hoped was a soothing tone, “I’m sure there must be a mistake. I am not married, not yet at least.”

“They have a marriage certificate with your name on it,” she heaved in between sobs. 

“Maybe there are more people with the name Edward Kaspbrak?” he offered, carefully putting his arms around Myra’s shoulders to pull her into a hug that had only the upper half of their bodies touching. He was still wearing one shoe, the laces untied; the difference in height between his two feet bothered him. “Don’t worry, dear. I’m sure this is all a misunderstanding. I’ll call them tomorrow to figure things out.”

It took some time to calm Myra down. In her distressed state she had not even started on dinner yet. It was even more telling that she agreed to get some Chinese food delivered, only the non spicy dishes of the menu, with white rice on the side.   
Eddie enjoyed the food, sampling all the dishes while he ensured Myra again and again that he wasn’t married to another woman, that he couldn’t even remember ever being part of a wedding party at all. “I would remember something as important as a marriage, dear,” he told her. “This is just some unfortunate mix up.”

“If you got black out drunk in Vegas you wouldn’t remember getting married,” Myra miffed, poking her fork viciously in her white rice.

“I’ve never been to Vegas,” Eddie answered tiredly, the repeated conversation draining him. A headache started to push against the front of his skull. “Honestly, dear, can you even imagine me getting married in front of a fake Elvis? In one of those shady, sham churches, where drunks and harlots get their filthy germs all over the place?” God, he sounded like his mother.  
Nevertheless, he didn’t want to be found dead in such a place and it was not as if Myra or his mom would ever let him set foot near Las Vegas. They had thrown a collaborative fit about that one insurance convention in Atlanta, which ultimately ended in Eddie handing over his ticket to a colleague. 

The whole idea of Eddie being married to another person was ridiculous; he had been together with Myra since he was 26 years old, fresh out from under his mother’s wings. He didn’t know when he should have had the time to get married to someone! It was a relief when that bit of info finally got through with Myra and they could drop the whole thing for the night.  
She went asleep immediately at 10, or at least, that was the signal she was giving off. She laid on her back, with her sleep mask on and her hands crossed over her chest. Even in the dark Eddie could see how she pressed her lips together in anger. He briefly thought about offering her a peace offer in the shape of a kiss, but he was too exhausted by the whole ordeal. He slept within five minutes.

He didn’t give the unfortunate situation another thought until he had some free time at the office the next day. Jonathan, whom he shared the office with, was out for a meeting with a client, so he had the room to himself for a private call. 

Twenty frustrating minutes later he finally had the right person on the phone. A very kind woman told him there was indeed a marriage registered to his name; name, date of birth, place of birth, everything checked out on the certificate from several years back.  
“I was barely 18 back then!” Eddie exclaimed, truly baffled by the revelation. “Who the hell am I even married to?”

“I’ve got the name of Richard Tozier here,” the kind woman replied matter of factly. 

“Who?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention that I love comments? I do. I really, really do. I'd love to hear your thoughts on the story!


	4. A legal wedding

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's real.

So not only was he married, he was married to a man. According to the certificate, the wedding took place the day after the commerable date that gay marriage was legalised in the state of Maine. No matter how much of a backwater town Derry was, the state was actually pretty liberal with things like that. The event was celebrated throughout the country, Eddie now remembered he saw it on the news, before his mother turned off the tv because it showed two women kissing. Him and his friends probably just jumped on the chance to celebrate something. “You know what that means, Myra, the whole thing was a big joke,” he pressed. “We were kids. Dumb kids. Stupid, dumb kids.”

Myra was past the state of being upset. She was seething, quietly. Eddie thought he liked it better before, when she was still yelling at him. She sat on the sofa, her arms and legs crossed so tightly Eddie feared she might develop varicose veins from sitting like that alone. Eddie paced the room, the damning wedding certificate between them on the coffee table. 

Finding out he was really married was bad. Finding out he was married to a man was even worse, no matter how much more progressive society had become over the years. His mother had to breathe into a bag, Eddie coaching her through the phone, when she heard about it.   
He withheld the name of his legal spouse from his mother and the name luckily didn’t ring a bell for Myra. She didn’t need to know more than Richard Tozier being a childhood friend.

Richard Tozier. Richie. Trashmouth. 

The memories were hazy at best. After he put the phone down friday it took him at least ten minutes to get a - blurry - face to the name Richard Tozier. Shaggy curls, dark rimmed glasses. A wide smile was added to the memory some time later. The name Richie loosened up his memories some more, bringing him also the nickname ‘Trashmouth’. He was pretty sure they were part of the same group of friends, back in Derry. 

On monday, after a very tense weekend, he went to pick up a copy of the marriage certificate at the city office. He spent a long time on a park bench, staring at the two names at the top of the certificate. At the bottom, underneath his full name, was his signature, the neat script hardly changed over the years. Next to it was a scramble of spikey loops that Eddie deciphered to say ‘Richie T.’ after a while. 

The wedding was officiated by a M. Hanlon, ordained by the Universal Life Church - who just about ordained anybody who was of age, if you asked Eddie. His brain provided him with the name Mike after some thinking and he also remembered how Mike was the oldest of their group of friends. His older age apparently didn’t grant him any wisdom, if he officiated a wedding between two boys still in their teen years. He got two other names from the certificate too: Stan Uris and Bill Denbrough. They were their witnesses.

Eddie couldn't do anything but conclude they must all have been very, very drunk. 

The whole thing would really just be some administrative bullshit, if Myra - and his mother - didn’t make such a big deal out of it. Suddenly they were reevaluating his character and bearing down on his independence even more than usual. It was suffocating. Eddie nearly broke down under their constant scrutinizing, especially now his mother was visiting because “they were going through a crisis and needed her support”. 

Work was his only refuge and even there he couldn’t escape from the situation fully, because he needed to arrange for his lawyer to prepare his divorce papers. Preferably without Jonathan - or anyone else from work - finding out about the whole mess, so he had to plan his phone calls with his lawyer in accordance with his co-worker’s agenda. He would probably have to change lawyers after this, he could not, in his right mind, let her make up his prenup with Myra too. Not after this whole embarrassing affair. 

"I need you to arrange my divorce."

"I wasn't aware that you were married?" No matter how professional his lawyer was, Eddie could still hear her genuine surprise over the phone. 

"I wasn't either."

"Oh." 

Yes, he definitely needed another lawyer after this. 

When the divorce papers were finally ready, Eddie had them sent to his office. During Jonathan’s lunch break he read through them, the whole stack of them. Getting married drunk to your childhood friend came with some complications, like getting married without a prenup. Which meant that if they got separated, they would have to divide their assets evenly. The divorce papers contained several clauses about that, revoking the right to each other’s property and some more legal precautions, just to be safe. Every page had a space for the both of them to sign-off on it; Eddie put his initials down on every page, a surprisingly heavy feeling weighing down his stomach. 

With his side of the proceedings done, now followed the next part: contacting Richie Tozier so they could make the divorce final.


	5. Tracking down a comedian

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eddie looks up Richie on the internet.

For some reason Eddie postponed searching online for his legal spouse until he couldn’t put it off any longer. Now, with the divorce papers waiting for the second signature, he couldn’t get out of it anymore. One evening, when Myra was out to her book club and his mother was already down for the night in the guest room, he typed the name from the wedding certificate in Google’s search bar and pressed enter. 

Eddie immediately shut his laptop.

He opened it again, scolding himself for being such a coward. He needed an address, preferably a physical address, but email would work too. Google gave him a lot. Thumbnails for YouTube videos filled the top of the page, followed by a Wikipedia page and several media websites. He tentatively clicked the Wikipedia link and read the header of the website: Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier. Comedian. To the right was a picture of a man with a microphone in his hand, his smile as bright and loud as his shirt. The curls were still there, although the hairline had receded quite a bit since their teens. The glasses were still present too, dark rimmed and goofy. Or maybe the goofy part was all Richie, it was just a pair of glasses after all.  
“He looks like an overgrown teenager,” Eddie muttered - surprisingly mild - to himself, mouse hovering over the picture. 

Shaking himself, he tore his eyes away from the man in the picture that was so undeniably familiar and started searching for the details he needed. Half an hour later, his chest tight and his stomach curled in on itself from trying to ignore all the pictures and videos of Richie, all he knew was that his childhood friend lived somewhere in LA and that he was represented by a major booking agency.

The email he sent them was short and business-like, asking for Richie’s personal information to be able to attend to a personal matter. He wasn’t gonna disclose to some anonymous assistant that he was married to Richie and wanted to annul the marriage.

The reply he got the next day, was equally short and of the same tone. They told him very politely to send all mail to the agency, where it would be redirected to Richie’s agent. “That won’t do,” Eddie frowned.

“What is it, Eddie?” Myra asked him from her spot in the kitchen. She was cutting up vegetables for dinner.

“Nothing, dear,” he replied quickly. Too quick, because Myra now appeared in the door opening, drying her hands with a tea towel. 

“You sound like something’s wrong,” she said, watching him like a hawk. Eddie found that her gaze had lost its softness ever since she found out he was already married. 

“It’s nothing, really,” he assured her. “I just got an email from the car company and they offered us a slate grey limousine.”

“I want a white town car,” Myra cut in.

“That’s why I said the grey one won’t do.” Eddie nodded confirmingly. He already arranged for the white car last week, using his old connections at the limousine company. He’d worked there during his college years and a little while after, driving celebrities and other VIP’s around town. It paid for college and he could do his assignments while he was waiting for his client to return from their night out. Basically, it was the ideal job for a college student.

His fiancée nodded sharply and turned back to the kitchen. “Dinner will be ready in twenty minutes. Please wake up your mother from her nap.”

That night, Eddie waited until Myra was fast asleep before he picked up the tablet from his nightstand. Searching for Richie online gave much of the same results as that afternoon. He had an official YouTube channel that was mostly a collection of clips from his stand up shows. Plural, as in more than one show. Richie 'Trashmouth' Tozier was a successful comedian with multiple shows to his name, now _that_ was something to behold. Eddie doubted those shows were all ‘your mom’ jokes, although he wouldn’t put it past young Richie to be able to fill a whole evening with jokes about other people’s moms. It was one of the memories that came bubbling up with all the images of Richie he saw online: his friend constantly making jokes about having sex with Eddie’s mom. It was a staple of his youth, he figured.

Eddie put in the earbuds and clicked on a YouTube video that had highlights from Richie's last show. After a whirling intro with quotes from various media about the supposed quality of the show ("You will never take Richie Tozier home to meet your parents, yet you will keep on seeing him." - Hollywood Daily), the comedian himself appeared in the video. The first clip showed Richie drinking from a water bottle, eyeing the audience from the side. They were laughing boisterously about an unheard previous joke. "What?" Richie said to them, sounding put upon appalled. "That wasn't a joke! That was real!" More laughter followed. 

Only, Eddie had a hard time believing the following jokes were real. At first, he didn't recognise Richie's voice. But after a couple of minutes of typical jock jokes, something familiar crept up. It was the cadence, something in the way the words rolled of his tongue despite the typical Hollywood accent. Richie's show wasn't funny to Eddie. He was about 15 years older than Ritchie's regular demographic - if he based that assumption on the shots of the audience that were cut in between jokes - no wonder it didn't appeal to him. Yet he couldn't deny Richie's delivery was spot on, he had great timing and his facial expressions added comedic value. Eddie caught himself listening to the tone of voice instead of what really was being said and he quickly swiped out of the YouTube page. 

There was also a Twitter account, which he followed after a nervous ten minute back and forth with himself. He would be one of millions of followers, it was unlikely Richie would notice @ekaspbrak. And if he did and said something about it, that was a good way as any to get a conversation started.

From the language that was used, Eddie guessed the YouTube channel was maintained by the agency, while Richie updated the Twitter account himself. He scrolled through some tweets, going through a variety of scrunched up facial expressions while reading them.

 **Richie** @therealtrashmouth / jan 8 _  
_ _I just woke up. Is it too late to still say Happy New Year?_

 **Richie** @therealtrashmouth / jan 12 _  
_ _My Netflix is recommending shows I’ve already seen. Does that mean I’ve seen them all?_

 **Richie** @therealtrashmouth / jan 23 _  
_ _Ate the lasagna I found in the back of my fridge. Now seeing colours I’ve never seen before. It was good knowing you people!_

 **Richie** @therealtrashmouth / jan 24 _  
_ _Still alive._

“God, he’s an idiot.” Eddie barely remembered in time to whisper, as to not wake up Myra. He scrolled back up to the more recent tweets, which were more of the same, save from some tweets about a Netflix special.

 **Richie** @therealtrashmouth / march 28 _  
__I can’t believe there are still people out there that haven’t seen my Netflix special. I hear they have jobs and families and you know… a life._

Richie’s Twitter page left Eddie with a bad taste in his mouth. Sure, each tweet had hundreds or thousands of retweets and just as much reactions, yet he couldn’t shake the feeling of loneliness that bubbled up between the lines. Memories of Richie were still somewhat hazy, but he was fairly sure Richie was hardly ever alone back then. They were always with a group. It was hard to imagine him being alone; adult Richie probably had famous friends who he didn’t mention because of privacy reasons. That aside, it was safe to assume Richie wasn’t in a relationship that was on the road to marriage. After all, he would have discovered that he was already married, the same way Eddie had. A marriage of over twenty years, by now. Wasn’t that something? 

Something ridiculous, that was for certain.

He scrolled all the way to the top of the page to see if he could send Richie a private message, introduce himself and ask him for an address to send the divorce papers by courier. Or go there himself, to handle things personally. 

That last thought was dismissed as soon as it came up. Myra would never allow him to fly to LA to visit his legal spouse. His mother would lecture him on the risks of blood clots shooting to his brain, after she was done about the viruses that were dispersed by the plane’s air conditioning system. Besides, Eddie didn’t like flying, he didn’t like to be in a cramped space, knocking elbows with the people next to him. Getting his meds on board with him was also quite the hassle.

More importantly, there wasn’t even the possibility to send Richie a private message on Twitter. Like any other verified celebrity account with the blue checkmark, he could only mention _@therealtrashmouth_ in a public message. Eddie quickly balked from that idea. He wasn’t even that considerate about what it would mean for Richie if he tweeted publicly about needing the comedian to sign their divorce papers, he simply dreaded the thought of airing his own public affairs like that. What if his boss read about it? His co-workers?

No, Eddie wanted to do this as private as possible. If only he knew how to get in touch with Richie directly! 

He leaned his head back against the headboard of the bed, thinking hard. The only way to reach Richie was through his agent and Eddie didn’t feel like explaining his situation to a stranger. If the agent believed him in the first place. Who knew what crazy things Richie’s fans came up with to get in touch with him?

Eddie pulled up the scan of the marriage certificate on his tablet, reading it for the umpteenth time. His eyes caught on the name of Mike Hanlon, their friend who officiated the wedding. Maybe he could get to Richie through one of their friends. Surely there must be someone who kept in touch?


	6. Connection

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ask Mike.

There was an underwhelming amount of information about Michael Hanlon on the internet. Eddie found a restricted Facebook page of a Mike Hanlon from Derry, whose profile picture showed a squirrel in a tree. And he was mentioned on the website of the local library, as head librarian. Again, there was no personal contact information to be found, but at least he could call the library in the hope Mike would be there.

Eddie called the library halfway during his morning run, pacing up and down a lane in the park to keep his muscles warm. 

“Derry Public Library, how can I help you?” a warm voice answered the phone. 

“Hello, this is Eddie Kaspbrak. I am looking for Mike Hanlon.”

“Eddie?” The voice on the other end of the call sounded confused and surprised. “Eddie Kaspbrak, is that you?” 

“Mike?” 

The man chuckled. “Yeah, yes, it’s me, Mike. Never expected for you to call me first, man! How are you? It’s been a long time!”

Eddie was a bit stumped by Mike’s reaction, who seemed to remember him instantly. He immediately felt guilty for forgetting about Mike - and Richie, and the rest of their friends for that matter. His childhood friend didn’t seem to care though, he immediately launched into an animated catch up talk. Eddie’s memories of Mike came back the longer they chatted; memories of the boy from the farm, who was homeschooled and often the object of nasty remarks about the colour of his skin. That didn’t seem to bother him that much, though. He was worldly, kind and helpful; essentially all the things that the average resident of Derry was not. And he had been a good friend of Eddie.   
“I’m sorry, I really should’ve kept in touch with you after I left Derry,” Eddie admitted ruefully. 

“That’s okay,” Mike answered and Eddie got the feeling he really meant that. “I’m happy to hear from you now. I must say, it’s rather out of the blue!”

“Yeah, about that…” Eddie rubbed a hand across his face. Why did he suddenly feel embarrassed? “I was actually hoping… I mean… Do you know how to get in touch with Richie?”

“Trashmouth? He made it big, didn’t he? Lives in LA nowadays, I think.” 

“Yeah, he does. I looked that up already,” Eddie said. “Are you still in touch with him?”

Mike hummed. “No, not really. I mean, I kept tabs on him, did that with all of you guys actually.” He laughed quietly. “Just out of curiosity, you know, to see where everyone ended up after they left town.”

Eddie got the sinking feeling that they all left Mike behind. “You never wanted to leave town?” 

Another hum, thoughtful this time. “No, I don’t know. I guess I kinda felt like someone had to stay behind.”

“Not much to stay behind for, in a backwater town like Derry,” Eddie said before he could shut himself up. Nice, Eddie, insult your friend for his choice to stay in their hometown. 

“We all do what we gotta do,” Mike answered unbothered. He was good like that, Eddie remembered. “Now, listen, I might be able to get you Richie’s contact information. I’ll have to look it up though, can I get back to you later?”

Mike noted down Eddie’s mobile number and email address, promising him to let him know when he had the information. 

It only took him half a day. He had a mobile number for Richie, and an address. But, Mike added in his email, that might be a previous address, because he thought Richie had moved recently. The number had been the same for years, so that was his best bet.  
“Amazing,” Eddie emailed back. “I couldn’t dig up any personal information when I searched online.”

Mike’s reply was simple. “I’m a librarian, we can find anything.”

With Richie’s phone number in possession, Eddie could finally proceed with his - their - divorce. He was just one call away.

He should call. 

He really should pick up the phone and call Richie.

Maybe he should prepare for the call first.

What if Richie thought it was a prank call?  _ “Hi, this is Eddie. We haven’t seen each other in twenty years, but we’re married and now I want a divorce.” _ God, it sounded like a prank call from a crazy person.  
However, Eddie couldn’t turn it any other way. The whole thing  _ was _ ridiculous. No matter how he phrased it, at the bottom line he was still asking to divorce someone he didn’t remember marrying in the first place. How could he forget about something like that? How did you forget about such an important event in your life? Had it really been the alcohol? Were they all so drunk they blacked out? Mike hadn’t mentioned the marriage on the phone and he proved to have a better memory than Eddie. On the other hand, he didn’t ask why Eddie needed Richie’s contact information either. Maybe he was just too polite to pry about it.

That night in bed Eddie turned to YouTube again. Richie's shows were all labeled for containing adult content, no wonder when every other joke was about sex, failing to have sex or drinking; most of the jokes being a combination of those three, everything generously sprinkled with swear words. He put one on as background noise to his thoughts, the familiarity of Richie’s voice had a calming effect on him he discovered, no matter what kind of nonsense he spewed. Myra would never let him watch those shows, no matter if Richie was his forgotten husband or not. But Myra was asleep right now, at the far end of the bed with her back turned to Eddie. Their relationship never was the summit of warmth and affection, yet things had turned truly arctic now. Eddie was fine without the whole mushy display of affection some couples had, sharing body fluids tapped into his anxieties about diseases and germs anyway. Yet Myra’s turn from ‘caringly hovering’ to ‘angry monitoring from a distance’ was upsetting and unsettling; surely she must see Eddie was also unhappy about the whole situation? He didn’t want this kind of problems any more than she did.  
Still, Eddie couldn’t help but feel some delight over the whole situation. It had been wonderful to talk to Mike, a good twenty years after leaving Derry. Eddie wanted to keep in touch this time. Talking to Mike felt nothing like talking to the people he called his friends here in New York. It was personal, yet easy. Mike didn’t counter every word with some feat of his own, he let Eddie talk and he listened, asking real questions. And that was just a conversation over the phone, basically nothing more than a few minutes of catching up on each other’s lives. It was nice.

For the first time in twenty years, Eddie thought about visiting Derry again.

He woke up with one earbud still in his ear, the other smushed between his cheek and the pillow. The tablet was dead, run out of battery. Eddie pulled the earbuds away from his face, rubbing the red dent one left in his cheek. He didn’t remember falling asleep, but he must have at some point, listening to Richie telling bad jokes that didn’t deserve the gusto he served them with. 

The alarm clock next to his bed told him he still had about ten minutes before his alarm would go off. Myra was still asleep, her back turned to him as it probably had remained during the night. She was a heavy sleeper and hardly ever moved during the night. When they first started sharing a bed, Eddie sometimes thought she was dead, even though he could see her chest or shoulders move slightly with the slow breaths of the sleep. Richie didn’t strike him as a still sleeper, the guy would probably take up the whole bed with his long limbs or cling to Eddie like a koala.

That… 

That was an inappropriate thought. 

Eddie threw the covers back and swung his legs over the edge of the bed. He shoved the connector of the power cord into the tablet more forcefully than was advised and disappeared into the bathroom a moment later. A shower would wake him up properly, would help to get rid of the remnants of Richie’s voice that were still stuck in his head.

He needed to call Richie today.


	7. Wake up call

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First contact.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch.

Richie was in a room where it was damp, drafty and unnaturally dark. Somehow he knew perfectly well what the room looked like, even though he couldn’t describe it. It was like having a word on the tip of your tongue: you know what it is, you know what shape it is, yet you can’t say it, no matter how hard you try.   
His body was too small, limbs feeling to frail for his almost middle aged self. He was a kid, maybe a young teenager. It was one of those lucid dreams of his. Again.   
Richie didn’t know what was worse: having to see his kid self barely live through it or experience the whole fucked up ordeal himself. The jury was still out on that one. Both versions made him wake up drenched in sweat, his throat hoarse from screaming.

He wasn’t at the waking up part yet. Not yet. Young Richie stood frozen in the middle of the dark room. He could sense things around him, live things. Dread filled his whole being, even without knowing what was there with him in the dark. In fact, dread seemed to be the one thing that held him up, that kept his tiny body upright and not in a whimpering heap on the floor.

Some part of him was aware that his nightmares often consisted of the same recurring elements. A rickety old house, waiting for demolition. Or sewers, dark, smelly, haunted pipes with dirty water to splash through. He was pretty sure some dream therapist could tell him exactly what those things stood for. Richie was not exactly living his dream life (Ha! Pun intended) - oh, some people may call it the life of their dreams, but Richie was the one living it and he had found it surprisingly empty.

When the first clown puppet burst out of the dark shadows, little Richie almost had a heart attack. For adult Richie recognition sank in and he realised there were more of those fucked up clown dolls to come. That was what had been staring at him in the dark; he was surrounded by creepy ass dolls. But there was something else… something more disturbing than cackling puppets with cracked paint jobs as faces, jumping out of miniature coffins. He couldn’t quite grasp the strain of thought, couldn’t hold on to it long enough to decipher it, to make sense of it, to know what was waiting there for him. 

So when the child-sized coffin revealed itself, with kid Richie inside, his face a travesty of classic clown make-up and maggots crawling from his mouth and nose, child Richie ánd adult Richie succumbed to terror.

Richie woke up half next to his bed, his chest clinging to the bed, while his left leg made a futile attempt to climb back inside the bed. His right leg had already giving up and slumped on the floor. His T-shirt was sticky with sweat, as were his boxer briefs. When he pushed himself up with his arms, his body slithered all the way out of bed, unto the carpeted floor. The plush carpet felt disgusting against his sweat covered skin. He lunged to his feet, almost swaying backwards because of the sudden action. 

The bottle was three quarters filled when Richie grabbed it from the cabinet. It was empty by the time it slipped from his fingers and fell onto the ground next to the couch.

When Richie got out of the shower he just heard his ringtone cut off. The phone was on his bed, somewhere in the tangle of sheets. Or underneath it, making friends with the dust bunnies. Or still in the front pocket of his jeans from yesterday, discarded on the floor. Whatever. He wasn’t gonna look for it now.   
He also didn’t pick up his phone when it rang again a couple of minutes later. He was too busy staring in the mirror, the towel slung over his head, his hands fisting the fabric on each side. Not that there was so much to see in the mirror. Just the same old dark rings beneath his eyes, his skin pale and blotchy, with patches of irritated, red skin between the stubble.   
“You look radiating,” he said to his reflection in a southern belle accent. “You’re practically glowing, my dear!”

His reflection only sighed, the sound raspy and reminiscent of a groan. Richie tossed the damp towel in the bathtub and went in search of some clothes.

After searching the cupboards and the fridge for something akin to breakfast, Richie decided the ramen noodles that were left over from earlier this week would make a fine breakfast today. “Veggies for breakfast, mrs. K would be proud of me,” he mumbled while the microwave heated up the take out box, his mind too foggy to wonder who mrs. K was and why she would approve of eating vegetables. 

The couch was still slightly warm from him spending whatever was left of the night and most of the morning on it. The empty liquor bottle rolled to the side when Richie shuffled his way to his regular seat. He slumped down, planting the box of days old but steaming hot take out on his stomach. The heat was welcome against his churning insides, who were still processing his alcohol intake from last night. And a bag of chips, if the empty, crinkled up bag on the coffee table was any indication. Richie planted his feet on the package, content to stay here until his brain came back online.

Mind filled with daytime tv, Richie wondered idly if he should go see a shrink. For as long as he could remember he had those crazy dreams, about sewers and decayed houses filled with clowns. The only difference was the frequency and the intensity of the nightmares. He wasn’t totally sure, but over the past twenty-odd years he went from the occasional bad dream to fuck-up-your-sleep-schedule nightmares that started to interfere with his everyday life.   
Only, a shrink would put him on meds. Medication that would make him sleep and that would numb his senses. There was a year in college that was like that, until he decided that alcohol did the same thing, but better. Alcohol let him have some fun. Or made him  _ think  _ he had fun, same difference. 

Richie unearthed his phone from underneath a pile of clothes in his bedroom and checked the screen. It told him two things: one, that it was closer to dinnertime than lunchtime, and two, that he had nine missed calls and five voicemails.   
His call history told him only four of the missed calls are from his manager. The others were from an unknown number, with a 917 area code. “Who’s calling me from New York?” Richie asked the dirty socks hanging from the dresser, taking note of the time of the calls. 

The first call was made at 8.30 in the morning and Richie scoffed at that. “Ha! Good luck catching me awake at that hour.” The socks, knowing his line of work, didn’t deem that worthy of a response.  
There were three other calls around an hour later, each one quickly succeeding the other, all by the same unknown number. Then there were two calls from his manager, who knew Richie often failed to pick up the first time calling. Two calls from his manager again, this time in the early afternoon. And one last call from the unknown number.

Richie sat down on his bed to listen to the voicemails. The detached voice of the phone lady told him the number that left the first voicemail before Richie was plunged in what seemed to be the middle of a conversation.  
_ “- so surprised you rememb- Wait. What? What the fuck? This is your voicemail. Oh my god. Oh my fucking god. How immature can you be? Are you literally a giant manchild? Who the hell has a voicemail like that? Teenagers, that’s who! How can you be living in a million dollar home in Los Angeles and have a voicemail like that? You know what, I should have known this is your sense of -” _

Richie listened to the voice ranting on about the quality of his humor and how impossible it was that he actually made a career out of it. “Tell me about it, bud,” he chuckled, perversely enjoying the attack on his persona until the voice was cut off abruptly, having reached the maximum length of the message.

The second message went on in the same fashion; it was the same voice, ranting at hyperspeed about how appalled he was by Richie’s voicemail message, that it was unprofessional and most certainly not funny to let people think he answered the phone when they had actually reached his voicemail.  _ “And who the fuck is not up at…” _ the voice tethered off for a moment and Richie imagined the person at the other end of the line checking their watch and taking the three hour time difference between Los Angeles and New York into account, _ “9.30 in the morning on a week day?!”  
_ The voice went on and on until it again reached the end of the message, without having said their own name. That happened more often, when people got tricked by Richie’s voicemail message, which left them time to start a conversation, only to be cut off rudely by the beep that marked the beginning of a recording. His manager had asked him repeatedly to change the voicemail message, to no avail. He knew it was childish and far from professional to have a message like that, but he refused to let this bit of fun to be taken away from him. 

It was clear that the unknown caller had waited out the obnoxious voicemail message before he started speaking for the third message. An annoyed sigh was audible anyway and Richie could almost imagine how the other person squeezed the bridge of their nose between their thumb and index finger. The message they left was short and to the point:  _ “This is Eddie Kaspbrak speaking. I need to talk to you. It’s personal. And important. Call me.” _

Richie lifted the phone from his ear to stare at it. He’d listened to the first two voicemails with some odd, fond feeling growing in his stomach; no matter that his voicemail message, his sense of humor and his career were roasted by an unknown person speaking faster than the speed of light. And then the caller said his name and the fond ball of emotion in his stomach shrunk down immediately to the size of a pinhead, poofing out of existence the other second, leaving behind some weird, gaping hole. It ached. Why the fuck did it ache?

He scrambled to put the phone on speaker when he realised he heard the tinny voice of his manager. _ “- be nice if you picked up the phone every now and then. You gotta check your email, like, right now. I need a signature from you, like, yesterday. Read the email. Read the contract and sign. It’s a good deal, Rich, they conceded to all our requests. So, sign it and send it back to me. Oh, and change that goddamn voicemail while you’re at it.” _

The phone company lady alerted him of the last voicemail, again from the unknown number. Or, Eddie Kaspbrak’s number.  _ “Hi, this is Eddie Kaspbrak. Again. Look, uhm… I’m… I’m sorry about the voicemails I left earlier. I actually looked it up, but there is no way for me to erase the voicemails I left, so… yeah. I apologise for saying those things. I still think your voicemail message is the most obnoxious thing I’ve ever heard. You’re forty years old, man, you shouldn’t have to prank people on your voicemail anymore. Anyway, I’m getting off track. The reason I was calling…”  _ The line went silent, Richie could only vaguely hear Eddie’s breathing on the other side. It was weirdly intimate.  _ “Look, there is no way I can explain this in a voicemail message. Just… call me back, please? We know each other. I didn’t know… but we do. Maybe you remember me? I’m sorry I didn’t remem-” _ Eddie cut himself off. _ “Just, call me. Bye.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is Richie's voicemail message:  
>  _“Hey, this is Richie speaking.”  
>  …  
> “Hi! What’s up?”  
> ....  
> “Uhuh, cool.”  
> …  
> “Yeah… you know what? Maybe you should call back another time.”  
> [BEEP]  
> _


	8. On stage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On stage.

Richie looked into the black nothing behind the stage lights. He knew there was a room full of people there. He could hear them laughing, coughing or move in their seat. He couldn’t see much of his audience; if he got to the edge of the stage he could see the first row of tables, get an idea of what the people in the audience looked like. He stayed in the middle of the stage, he had no desire to see tonight’s turnup. They reacted at the right moments, their response to the jokes - platitudes at best - as reliable as a laugh track.   
He had played this venue countless times by now. It’s almost a second home to him, the outlay of the dark room as familiar to him as his own living room. There’s a table in the back, a little to the left, that has the worst view: the people in those seats always end up having to move their chairs to look around the pillar that is between them and the stage. It has been like that for years and nobody ever bothers to move that table.   
Richie liked how the audience was seated at little tables here, not sitting in long rows of plush chairs that were just short of comfortable. He felt more watched in those venues, more stared at. Tonight, people had more things to focus their attention on, like the drink on their table or their companion across from them. It also meant there was never a complete silence; there was always someone moving their chair, adding to the clinks of glasses and the murmur of quiet conversations. He liked how they had their own little life in the room and still gave him their attention and their laughs. 

Richie knew how to work a room. The jokes he told may not all be his own - nowadays he had several writers that supplied him material - but Richie prided himself on his feeling for timing. He knew how to deliver a joke. Period. So what if he wasn’t telling his own material on stage? Standing on stage and working the crowd was an art in itself.   
He did throw in some jokes of his own, just sprinkled throughout the routine. Some nights, when the crowd was generous with their laughs, he felt confident enough to make up entire portions of his routine out of his own work. Other nights, he kept to the standard material and just rode the evening out on the waves of complacency.

Tonight should have been one of those nights. He already noticed the crowd responded best to the jokes that weren’t his own. And he was still a bit rattled from the phone calls from this morning - or the voicemails from this afternoon, if you wanted to nitpick. 

“I got yelled at today,” he told the crowd. “I know, I know, you’d think I get yelled at everyday, but it actually isn’t as common as you think. My manager yells at me, of course, but he’s got it down to once, maybe twice a week nowadays. It’s nice. I think it means the paycheck he gets from me is finally at a level that makes him feel like he doesn’t have to yell at me that much anymore.”   
Richie didn’t really know where he’s going with his little story. It wasn’t like he sat down today to write new material about the unusual phone calls. He just needed to get it off his chest, in some way. And apparently, talking about it in front of a dark room filled with strangers was the way to go.  
“It was a voicemail. Several of them, actually. He ranted for such a long time that he actually had to call back to finish his rant. That’s dedication, people! He really, really wanted me to get the message.” He waits for a second, looking out into the room. “My voicemail message is stupid.” Another short second. “That’s it! That’s what he was ranting about! He called me, wanting to talk about God knows what, and then went off on an angry rant about the quality of my voicemail message. He was so ticked off by it that he forgot to tell me his name.” Richie rubbed his jaw, thinking for a moment about the sensation the stranger’s name caused when he finally heard it. Then he picked up his story again.   
“He called a second time, immediately after that, still no name. Still angry about my voicemail message. Which he had to hear again, because he called again! He left me four messages! I think I gave that guy high blood pressure. He might sue me if he gets a heart attack.” Richie grimaced at his audience. “I think my manager will start to yell at me again if he does that.”  
The audience granted him an enthusiastic laugh and Richie makes an easy segue to phone sex and booty calls before he ends his set to the sound of an eager applause. 

“Your voicemail message  _ is _ stupid,” Mario said when Richie sat down at his regular stool at the bar.   
Mario was the perfect stereotype of a bartender: just on the right side of handsome to please the ladies, yet still enough of an average Joe as not to make the male patrons envious. He thought cocktails were for pussies and there was always a tuft of dark, curly chest hair visible above white shirt. The bartender was easy to talk to and had a good memory for the favourite drinks of his regulars. Richie never had to ask for his whisky on the rocks, Mario would put it down in front of him just moments after he sat down.

“Voicemail messages in general are stupid,” Richie retorted, lifting his glass in a small salute to the bartender before taking a sip.

“You still have that one that makes people think you picked up the phone?” Mario lifted an eyebrow and challenged Richie with his stare. “Thought so,” he chuckled when Richie shrugged, “then your voicemail is stupid in particular.”

“Whatever, I don’t hear you ranting about it for twenty minutes straight.”

“So that guy really did that?” Mario made a face of appreciation, pursing his lips. “You have weird friends.” He continued to polish wine glasses and hang them upside down on the rail above the bar. Richie liked looking at him when he did things like that, the movements were so practised and smooth, the bartender could probably do it blindfolded and in his sleep and still not break a glass.

“He’s not a friend! At least, I don’t think he is.” 

“A one night stand?”

“I’m not -” Richie halted his own words and shook his head. “I don’t know this guy.”

“Maybe he’s a fan?” When Richie made a face Mario shrugged. “A fan that likes your comedy but not your voicemail?” 

“I don’t think he’s a fan,” Richie said slowly. “He is… I don’t know who he is, but I kinda got the feeling I _ should  _ know.”

Mario paused his polishing and smirked. “He’s a one night stand you forgot about?” 

Richie scowled. “I think I would remember fucking a guy.” He took a large swig of his whisky and stared at the bottom of his drink. “It’s gotta be something else. Some other connection.”

However, even if Richie was pretty sure he  _ would _ remember it if he  _ fucked _ a guy, there was something nagging at the back of his brain.  _ Eddie Kaspbrak. _ He kept mulling the name over, pulling up vague dredges of long forgotten memories. He didn’t fuck the guy, if he had, he wouldn’t be so awfully repressed about it now, would he? Every time he thought about  _ being _ gay; like, actually doing something about those feelings, putting his fantasies into practice, he would seize up. One time he got so drunk, he started hitting on Mario. He’s pretty sure he waxed poetically about the guys chest hair. It was a clear sign he was shitfaced, because Mario is way hairier than Richie would ever find attractive. If he ever came close to admitting what he found attractive. In men. 

Eddie Kaspbrak.

He was tiny. Feisty too. Like a little firecracker. The description that flitted through his brain fit the voice on the phone. Eddie sounded like someone who was very defensive about his height, meaning he didn’t have a lot of it. 

Eddie  _ Spaghetti _ .

He looked up at Mario, confused about the weird turn of his own thoughts. “He makes me think of spaghetti.”


	9. Bringing the band back together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> First contact part two.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch.

Richie’s nightmares had some new elements to them that night. He was no longer alone when he sloshed through the filthy water of the sewer. He couldn’t see faces, he just felt their presence. One of them was Eddie, he was sure of it, a faceless ball of nerves that never strayed far from him. Or maybe he was the one that kept circling back to his side. No words were spoken and his companions were no more than shadows and movements in the dark. Despite that, Richie wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t alone. He was with his friends.

Until he suddenly found himself inside the dark room with all the clown dolls. He was alone then. 

Richie sat on his sofa in the dark living room. The large windows faced East and although the sun hadn’t poked its head above the horizon yet, he could tell by the way the darkness of the sky slowly receded it was closer to morning than midnight.  
His phone was in his hand, the device weighing heavy in his hand. He’d replayed Eddie’s voicemails. First one time, then a second to be sure and after a few minutes of staring into nothing he played the voicemails a third time. 

Calling Eddie wasn’t a conscious decision. The phone was just ringing and then there was his voice, close to his ear. 

“Eddie Kaspbrak speaking.”

“I know you.” The early hour, his lack of sleep and, quite frankly, two whiskeys, gave his voice a hoarse quality. He almost didn’t recognise it himself. But Eddie did.

“Richie?” Eddie didn’t sound like the call woke him up. More so, the faint background noise made it sound like he was in the car. Probably on his way to work. “Richie, is that you?”

Richie made a non-committal noise and slouched back against the seat cushions. “I  _ know _ you,” he repeated, a little softer this time.

“Yeah, yeah you do,” Eddie answered quietly. Then Richie heard him gasp and the sound of a car horn followed. “Motherfucker!” Eddie exclaimed, clearly not directed at the phone. “Wait, I gotta… Let me find a spot to pull over.” He heard the rev of the engine and the ticking sound of the blinker a little later.  
Of course Eddie had a case of road rage. Richie wasn’t even surprised by it. He  _ knew _ Eddie, even though he knew absolutely nothing about him. Here on the other end of the line was this man that filled his voicemail with angry rants, having called him out of the blue. And somehow Richie was absolutely positive that this Eddie wasn’t some crazed fan or a random nutcase.  
The background noise of the engine cut off and there were some fumbling noises before Eddies voice came through the speaker again. Richie imagined he took his phone from the holder on his dashboard and put it to his ear.   
“There, I pulled over so we can talk without me being cut off by idiots who don’t know how to use their turn signal.” Eddie sounded a little agitated and that didn’t really change when he directed his words at Richie. “Isn’t it like, 5 AM over there? What are you doing up?”

Richie glanced at the clock at the wall behind him. “It’s 4:50, actually. Whatever. Why are  _ you _ up?”

“I’m on my way to work,” Eddie deadpanned. Why could Richie imagine his face when he said that? He had no idea what this Eddie Kaspbrak looked like.  _ Yeah you do. _ He couldn’t picture it, but somehow he knew? 

“I’m gonna be late,” his friend muttered. Because that was what he was, wasn’t he? Eddie was his friend. “But that’s okay,” Eddie interrupted as if Richie would protest and hang up to make sure his friend got in time to work. “I’m glad you called. We… we need to talk.”

“I’m not changing my voicemail message.”  
And that’s how Richie had the most comfortable and fun conversation he’d had in a long time, with a stranger.

Well, not a total stranger. Because they really did know each other, they both grew up in Derry, Maine. Couldn’t have been the most eventful place, because they barely had any memories about the place. They tried digging them up a little, but didn’t really get far. There were more of them, though, just like in Richie’s dream. Eddie named Mike, who had apparently given him Richie’s phone number. Richie thought of a gentle farm boy when he heard the name and he wasn’t surprised when the odd feeling of longing got a little sharper when he remembered it wasn’t just Eddie. They couldn’t name the others, but Eddie said that Mike probably could. 

“We should have a reunion!” Richie exclaimed, now hanging upside down on his sofa with the phone pressed to his ear. If he was a teenage girl in the nineties he would have curled the phone cord around his fingers. “Get the gang back together! Losers unite!”

Where did that name come from? Richie didn’t bother with thinking about it. Talking to Eddie brought up all kinds of words and feelings, stuff that was apparently all connected to his youth in Derry. It was like holding a Christmas tree upside down and shaking it to see what would come loose. Swimming in the quarry, a hidden club house, riding his bike with Eddie on the handlebars. It was all disconnected images and shreds of sentences, nothing to connect it all. But that didn’t matter, because those small fragments of long forgotten memories all lodged together to form some warm, fuzzy ball in Richie’s chest.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea.” Eddie sounded hesitant, for the first time since the start of their conversation. 

“Come on, Eds! It’ll be fun!” Richie swung his legs to the side so he could sit up again. Blood slowly drained back from his head and settled in its designated place. “We can get together in Derry, bring up some more memories.” 

“Don’t call me Eds,” Eddie snapped angrily, but it didn’t sound very convincing. There was a deep breath on the other end of the line. “We did forget a lot, didn’t we?” Richie imagined Eddie leaning against his car window, looking a little wistful. Then he started to sound like he wanted to back out and Richie wasn’t having that.

“This is what we are gonna do. You are gonna give me Mike’s phone number and then me and Mike are gonna round up the rest of the gang. The man used to work on a farm, I’m sure he can herd some people together.”  
Eddie was a little hard to convince, but Richie managed to do it in the end. He was buzzing with excitement, eager to meet a bunch of strangers that used to be his childhood friends. Not the most common thing to be looking forward to, but Richie couldn’t help it. This was something he wanted to do. As soon as possible, if he had any say in it.

He was still all psyched up when Eddie suddenly cut through his happy rant. “Fuck. I am late for work. I… I should go, Rich.”

“I’m pretty sure you are never late for work, buddy, so they can suck it up for once.”

Eddie didn’t agree with that, of course. “And we still haven’t talked about… There is something…”

Richie waved it off. “It can wait, Eds.”

“Don’t call me -”

“You get your ass back on the road and me and Mike are gonna get the band back together. You’ll be able to tell me everything you want to tell me face to face.” He grinned at the empty space of his living room. “See you soon, Eddie Spaghetti!”


	10. On the way to Derry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title says it all.

Richie was true to his word. He got in touch with Mike and together they arranged for all the Losers to meet up in Derry. Because that’s what they used to call themselves, the Loser club. There were seven of them, seven people that spread out over the country after getting out of Derry. Eddie was surprised he didn’t encounter one of them sooner, because Richie turned out to not be the only celebrity in their group. The famous thriller writer Bill Denbrough was one of them, as well as Beverly Marsh, one half of the famous fashion designer duo Rogan - Marsh. Actually, Eddie wasn’t surprised he never heard of his friend’s designer career, but he was pretty sure Myra has couple of books by Bill in her collection; thick volumes with covers that pictured either dark and foreboding forests or icy and desolate landscapes. Standard dust jackets for the genre that was Myra’s favourite. It’s odd that the name never rung a bell.

You’d think it would take a while to get seven people with busy schedules together, but it’s barely four weeks after his phone call with Richie that Eddie found himself on the freeway in the direction of his former hometown. Everyone was coming, even Stan, who was the hardest to track down and then the toughest to convince to come. One late night call with Richie - “Of such epic significance that we shall never speak of it again!” Richie had declared - finally persuaded him to come down to Derry. 

On the seat next to him was his overnight bag, because Richie decided they should make a weekend out of it. Beverly, always Richie's enabler, backed him up immediately. So Eddie packed a bag. With the big brown envelope with the divorce papers at the bottom of the bag. He had a whole weekend to bring the divorce up with Richie. Something he had not yet succeeded in, even though he talked to Richie on the phone weekly. They texted almost daily, if you counted the group chat Mike started. Every time Eddie wanted to bring it up, something came up. Either he waited too long and they had to end the call, or he simply forgot about it because Richie distracted him by… Well, by being Richie. They had this playful bickering back-and-forth thing that was thoroughly entertaining and often made Eddie forget about the depressed mood he was in that day. There were a lot of those days lately, the tension between him and Myra getting thicker the longer it took to take care of ‘his little situation’. Myra didn’t even address it properly, she always called it ‘your little situation’, which made Eddie feel like she was talking about him wetting the bed in his adult years. She understood it took a while to get the paperwork done, but once she found out that Eddie’s lawyer - their lawyer, really, that’s how she found out - had sent the papers, her patience was waning rapidly. She had absolutely no understanding for Eddie’s hesitance about finalising the divorce, she didn’t understand a thing about the precarious position Eddie was in and he stopped trying to make her see his point of view a while ago.

It was not like he could bring it up out of the blue anyway. "Hey Rich, and another thing: we're married!" And then the whole business of explaining he needed their marriage of nearly twenty years dissolved because he had to marry Myra.  _ Wanted _ to marry Myra, Eddie hastily corrected his own thoughts.

Almost twenty years… What kind of anniversary was that? Bronze or something? He would have to look it up. Maybe he should get Richie something, a gift to celebrate their anniversary. If he made a joke out of it, maybe it wouldn't feel so weird, so heavy, and they could get it over with and just continue… Just continue being friends, Eddie guessed. He didn’t really have a fixed idea about what would happen after the divorce was finalized. Now he had reconnected with his old friends, the idea of them disappearing to the background again was somehow inconceivable. Would Myra let him invite them to the wedding? She’d already drawn up the guest list.

On a whim, Eddie took the exit to the nearest gas station. He didn’t need to fill up his tank, he’d filled it up to the brim before he started on this trip. So he parked the car to the side of the gas station and… What did he want? What was he doing here? He side eyed the stand of water buckets filled with flowers wrapped in cellophane next to the sliding doors of the gas station. How could those flowers survive here in the petrol fumes? The faint smell of fuel stuck to everything, despite the open structure of the gas station. Maybe the flora here had developed a kind of resilience against the toxic fumes and they would wither as soon as you got them into the fresh air. Besides, it was not like he was ever gonna buy those flowers; he wasn’t going to give Richie a bouquet. He could already see himself showing up at the restaurant they were all supposed to meet, wrapped up flowers crackling in his balled up fist. You didn’t bring flowers for your male friend who you haven’t seen in almost twenty years. If you’d go to his home, maybe, his home where he lived with his wife and then you could give the flowers to his spouse and nobody would think anything about it except that it was a nice gesture. He could imagine bringing flowers for Beverly, but not for Richie. And even bringing flowers for his female friend would raise some unwanted questions. Why would he bring  _ her _ a gift and not the others? Was he hoping for something in return of the flowers? Why would Eddie bring flowers for a woman when he was engaged to one at home?  _ Nope _ , Eddie firmly shook his head. Flowers were out of the question. 

He pushed himself off his car, where he had been leaning against the door, staring at the flowers by the door of the gas station as if they had somehow offended him. He might as well take a look in the little shop, who knows, maybe they had the perfect anniversary gift for a couple who had not seen - or remembered - each other for almost the entire duration of their marriage.   
He trailed through the aisles of the little store, his hands pushed deep inside the pockets of his jacket and his shoulders hunched. He forcibly stopped himself from glancing at the cashier every two minutes, afraid of how she could think him a robber who was just working up the courage to pull out his gun and demand the contents of her money drawer.

For such a small gas station, the store was oddly well assorted. They offered a wide selection of pre-packed sandwiches and they even had an aisle that offered all kinds of necessities you might need on the road, from maxi pads to matches to a tiny disposable barbecue that could grill maybe two hamburgers at a time.  
Eddie paced up and down the aisle with snacks, contemplating whether he could buy Richie a box of chocolates. Valentine’s Day was long gone, but the little store carried boxes of pralines in varied shapes and sizes. Problem was that most of them had a text printed on them, like ‘for the world’s sweetest grandma’. Although, maybe that wasn’t that much of a problem, Richie would surely see the humour in that. Right? Could he assume as much from his friend whom he hadn’t seen for almost twenty years? His… Eddie swallowed hard. His fucking  _ spouse _ ?

Actually, Richie would probably like anything he got him. He was incredibly elated about this whole Losers reunion. It was endearing, actually, the level of gusto that Richie showed about seeing all of them again. It was hard to say no to such enthusiasm. Mike had chipped in too, the librarian was also eager to get them all back to Derry as a group, although his efforts seemed more determined, more solemn. Eddie guessed that was just Mike’s personality, librarians were serious people, right? And everybody would look serious next to Richie, who practically bounced in his chair when they had that video call with the seven of them.

However, Eddie could use a bit of that earnestness that Mike provided. He’d bet that his childhood friend could give him some advice about what to get his other childhood friend, the one to whom he was married for half his life without knowing it. On second thought, maybe Ben Hanscom was probably the best person to ask for advice in this situation. Didn’t he used to write poems? Eddie remembered how Beverly had unearthed that little fun fact of their childhood for them, saying she found an old poem in a shoebox in the back of her closet when she was packing for her move to Chicago some years back. The poem was signed with the letter B and they all had a good laugh at the expense of Bill and Ben, trying to figure out which one of the two was most likely to have written the little piece of poetry. Beverly had actually refused to read the poem, saying that she didn’t want to dig up the thing again. However, seeing as she still kept it, it probably had sentimental value to her and the emotions attached to it were more likely the reason she didn’t want to read it to them. Also, it spared Bill and Ben some humiliation. Ben was the one who wrote the poem, they determined in the end. He’d admitted to writing poetry every now and then, well into his adult life. Bill as the writer of the piece of literary art was dismissed expertly by Richie, by exclaiming: “Have you read his books? If he wrote that poem it would be twenty pages long. The man can’t write an ending for his life!” 

Eddie already had his phone out in his hand, ready to call Ben, the most romantic of his friends, when he paused. If he asked Ben for advice, he’d have to explain why he wanted to get Richie a gift that was typical for a twenty year anniversary. He’d have to explain that he was married to his childhood friend. He’d have to explain he didn’t remember being married, that it only came up because he had to marry Myra and - 

_ Wanted to marry Myra _ . Goddammit! Eddie couldn’t even say it right in his own mind. Nobody was forcing him to marry his longtime girlfriend, who he shared a house and a life with. A  _ home _ and a life, Eddie corrected himself yet again. Fed up with himself, he shoved his phone back in his pocket and started to pace down the aisle again. 

In the end, when the cashier openly stared at him to get him to either buy something or just get his ass out of the store, Eddie grabbed his phone again and opened the internet browser. Surely the internet could give him some advice.  
He learned that twenty years of marriage was called a ‘porcelain wedding’ and that it was customary to present the couple with new china, arguing that after twenty years of family life their dinnerware would be up for replacement.  
Eddie remembered the white plates - “Eggshell white, Eddie-bear!” - with the trim of delicate flowers that Myra put on their gift registry and immediately dismissed the idea of getting Richie anything that resembled dinnerware. 

Fuck this, forget it. No gift for Richie but the divorce papers. If anything, Eddie could tie a ribbon around the envelope. 

He was almost out the store, when his eye was caught by a turd. A brown turd with eyes and a little yellow crown, sitting in a miniature toilet. The thing had a red sticker with the words ‘Try me’ on the tank lever. Eddie pushed the mini lever and the sound of a toilet flushing sounded, embarrassingly loud in the quiet store. The packaging branded the words ‘King of the porcelain throne’.   
“Fuck it,” Eddie mumbled. “You’re getting a toilet, Richie.”


	11. A touch to remember

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> School yard wedding

Eddie stared through his windshield at the front of the restaurant. ‘Jade of the Orient’ it said in yellow neon letters above the entrance. The owners had a love of neon, because besides the yellow letters there were also red lights that followed the shape of the red temple-like awning, as well as yellow and green light up stripes around the entrance.  
Tacky as it was, Eddie still stared at it for a good fifteen minutes before he got out of his car and walked up to the restaurant, his stomach in his throat. As excited as he was to see everybody again, there was also a strange kind of fear. One that made his feet heavy and his palms sweaty. Weird thing was, Eddie didn’t think it had much to do with seeing his old friends again, it was like the simple fact of being back in Derry installed fear in him. He shook himself and pushed open the door of the restaurant.

The hostess directed him to a room in the back, where two men sat talking to each other at the corner of a table. They got up when they saw him.   
“Eddie, good to see you!” Mike smiled jovially and shook his hand firmly. 

Eddie took his hand in both of his shortly and smiled back. “Good to see you too, Mike. It’s been too long.” And it was, Eddie could feel it in his whole body, it was  _ good _ to see his old friend.   
He directed his gaze to the other man, looking him over. “Bill,” he said then, the image of his childhood friend sliding over the image of the adult man he knew from their video calls. 

Emotions of all kinds rushed through Eddie’s body. He felt elated, nervous, scared, happy and warm at the same time. The feeling didn’t subside when Ben and Beverly joined them, their flights landed around the same time and they’d shared a cab. No handshakes this time, but hugs, both Ben and Beverly pulling him in for a firm embrace.  
“It’s so good to see you guys,” Beverly gushed when she had greeted them all. She waved a hand in the vague direction of the front of the restaurant. “Richie and Stan are just outside, they’ll be here in a minute.”

“Stan got cold feet again?” Mike asked gentle and joking at the same time, perceptive as always. 

Ben shrugged good naturedly. “We ran in to him as he was standing in front of the restaurant. Think he was just taking a moment.”

_ Or gathering courage to go inside _ , Eddie thought. From the way nobody reacted too much to Stan needing to collect himself before he came inside, he suspected they all understood the feeling.  
They all talked together, idling in the back room of the restaurant. All waiting for something, for the others, for the Losers Club to be complete.

“Stan the man, everybody!” a loud voice suddenly sounded through the room. Richie acted like he was presenting Stan, as if his own presence wasn’t just as new to them. Or, maybe it wasn’t for some of them, as they already encountered Richie - and Stan - outside the restaurant. Beverly and Ben maybe even shared their cab ride with him, as Eddie remembered how Richie’s flight landed not much later than theirs.  
Richie shook hands all around, slapping shoulders and dealing out half hugs. He engaged Mike in some sort of weird fist bumping ritual, something that the librarian underwent with an air of joyful suffering, indulging his friend’s enthusiasm. 

Eddie shook hands with Stan, telling his old friend it was really good to have him there. Stan smiled at him, though the smile didn’t really touch his eyes, as if he was holding something back.

“Eds! My man!” Richie exclaimed from Eddie’s side. “Let me take a good look at you!” Large hands grabbed his shoulders and held him at an arm’s length while Richie gave him a look over. Eddie simply stood there, unable to take his eyes of Richie. When they locked eyes, something seemed to click in his brain and it was like his diaphragm opened up and his heart and lungs fell through. There was a subtle shift in Richie’s gaze that made Eddie think maybe he experienced something similar. His reaction was entirely different though. Where Eddie thought his knees would give out under him, Richie surged forward and lifted Eddie up in a swooping bear hug. 

His friend might be saying some things, but Eddie couldn’t hear them. He was lost in his memories. One memory in particular. 

_ “Can I kiss you now?” Richie leaned over with puckered lips. His eyes were closed behind his coke bottle glasses. _

_ Eddie pushed him back with a hand against his chest. “No, you have to wait until the minister says you can kiss the bride.” _

_ “Are you the bride?” _

_ Eddie thought about that. Girls were brides, he wasn’t a girl. But Richie wasn’t a girl either and he was a couple of inches taller than Eddie. Girls couldn’t be taller than boys, right? He was the shortest one of their friends, Richie made sure he never forgot that too, always calling him Little Eddie. He didn’t particularly like that, but his mommy said he would get a growth spurt soon enough. So he could be the girl for now and then they could switch when he was taller than Richie. “I guess.” _

_ “Sweet,” Richie answered. He stuffed his hands down the pockets of his cargo shorts. His knees were scraped and there were dirt marks on his shins from playing hide and seek earlier. “What happens now?”  _

_ Eddie repeated the mechanics of a wedding ceremony to his friend. Miss Davis explained it to them this morning, when she told her second grade students she was getting married next week and the whole class was invited to come see her walk out of the church with her husband.  _

_ “So I walk you down the aisle, we say ‘I do’ and then I kiss you?” Richie bounced on his feet, waiting for Eddie to nod.  _

_ Eddie did and put his hand in the crook of Richie’s arm, walking with him to the tree in the corner of the schoolyard, that they had designated to be the stand-in for an altar. His friend purposely alternated his steps so they couldn’t walk comfortably in synch together. Eddie snagged on his arm to make him fall in step, which Richie did for maybe three steps altogether.   
_ _ They got to the tree and Eddie made them stand across from each other, holding hands in the middle. He hesitated at the next part. There wasn’t a minister and he couldn’t remember exactly what words Miss Davis had used to describe the ceremony. Something about vows. Or vowels. It was probably vows.  
_ _ “We have to say our vows,” he told Richie. _

_ “What are those?” _

_ Eddie hesitated again, but he couldn’t for long, because he was supposed to know how this whole marriage business went. “That you promise to get married.” _

_ “Oh, okay.” Richie scraped his throat and stood a little straighter. “I promise to be married to you,” he said, followed by a wide grin. “Is that right?” _

_ “Yeah, yeah,” Eddie nodded, following his friend’s example to stand straighter. His mommy was always reminding him about his posture, he shouldn’t slouch. He repeated Richie’s words. “I promise to be married to you.” _

_ Richie beamed at him, but his smile suddenly fell. “Was that all? There’s more, right? I think there’s supposed to be more.” _

_ “Uhm…” Eddie faltered a bit, nervously searching his brain for what their teacher told them.  _

_ “Oh! I know!” Richie let go of Eddie’s hands and began searching his pockets. He unearthed something red and plastic. “A ring!” _

_ Eddie scrunched his nose at the thing in Richie’s hand. “That’s been in your mouth. I’m not touching that! There’s germs and stuff.” _

_ “Oh, come on, I’ll clean it for you.” His friend took a slip of his T-shirt and rubbed the plastic ring pop vigorously. The ‘pop’ part was already gone, Richie had eaten that at some point before putting the plastic bit in his pocket.  
_ _ It took some convincing on Richie’s part - Eddie didn’t believe rubbing with a T-shirt really worked against germs - before the red ring pop was on Eddie’s hand. It sat around his thumb, because it was too big for his other fingers. He sheepishly showed it to his friend.  _

_ Richie showed him the biggest grin in return, one like that time when he had found a forgotten bag of Halloween candy in the back of a kitchen cabinet. “We’re married now!” he called out and stepped close to wrap his arms around Eddie’s middle and lift him off his feet. He didn’t even care about the ring pop digging into his shoulder when Eddie grabbed onto him for balance. _

He was put back to his feet again, while Richie purposely avoided his eyes and slapped his shoulder a little too hard. “We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for Eds, people!” he called, herding them all to the table. “He called me first!”

They all crowded into their seats, Beverly already reaching for the bottles of red and white wine that sat ready in the middle of the table. She handed one to Ben to open and opened the other one herself, ignoring Bill’s remarks that they could probably get something better to drink than cheap house wine if they waited for the waitress to come over.   
“What was that all about anyway, Eddie?” she asked, pouring Mike next to him a glass of white. “Why’d you call Rich all out of the blue?”

The image of the divorce papers at the bottom of his overnight bag presented themselves to the front of his brain. Eddie coughed nervously and took a swig of his wine - Bill was right, the red wine tasted cheap and sour. “I just… I needed to get in touch about something,” he said, stumbling his words a little.  
Richie looked at him curiously. It wasn’t as if they ever talked about those first calls again. Not really, at least. Richie gave him grief over the stupid voicemail rants, but he never asked why Eddie called in the first place.  
He was saved by their waitress coming over with the menus and a dish of fortune cookies. The conversation easily switched to the topic of what to order and Eddie was left with a sour sense of relief. 


	12. Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's (all) coming back.

Eddie hung over the toilet bowl in the bathroom in Mike's home. At least he didn't puke his guts out at the side of the parking lot by the restaurant, like Richie. He couldn't throw up now either, but he had to. It had to be something in the food, or something in their drink that made them fucking hallucinate. He pushed his finger deep into his mouth, trying to trigger his gag reflex; his throat was so constricted, all he did was catch his own finger with the muscles in his throat. He tried to think back to Richie puking, trying to feel queasy about it, yet all it did was trigger another memory of Richie. This one was about how Richie got sick after drinking soda mixed with whipped cream for a dare. Eddie remembered offering him a stomach relief tablet from his fanny pack.  
They had a good laugh about that at the table, about his little hip bag that contained a miniature pharmacy. He'd kept silent about the small first aid kit in his overnight bag, or the larger, almost military grade one in the trunk of his car.  
He didn't have to say anything, because it was like they were bombarded with memories now that they were together. Memories of their clubhouse, of cycling through the streets of their little town, of getting ice cream at that little parlor that Mike told them was still there today. Or about seeing movies at the Aladdin. And while his friends laughed at how they snuck in to see a PG13 film at 11 years old, Eddie remembered another snippet of that night: holding hands with Richie in the dark of the movie theater when the film got scary.

It wasn't the only memory that was like that. Richie was in like nine out of ten memories that came back to Eddie now he was here. Reading comic books together, lying shoulder to shoulder on his bed. Sharing the hammock in the club house and pestering the other while he was just happy to be that close to his friend. His friend that snuck into his bedroom window at night, because he couldn’t sleep alone because of the nightmares. They must have been 13 or even 14 years old at the time. Eddie remembered making Richie brush his teeth and wash his face and hands before he was reluctantly allowed into his bed, yet he also remembered falling asleep with his head in the crook of Richie's shoulder, Richie complaining about the pins and needles in his arm the following morning. 

How had he ever forgotten about Richie?

How had he ever forgotten about the first person he was in love with?

Eddie gave up on trying to throw up the contents of his stomach. If realising he had been in love with Richie for most of his youth didn’t make him puke, nothing was gonna do it. He splashed water into his face in the small bathroom and steeled himself for returning to the others. 

Mike lived in an apartment above the library. The space was awkwardly divided into little rooms, Eddie suspected this had been offices before Mike moved in. The living room had an odd shape because some walls were knocked down to turn multiple small offices - or storage spaces - into a larger space. It still looked like a library up here, with bookcases lining the walls and dividing the living room in a sitting area and a dining area with a small kitchen. Except, Mike’s book collection was a little different from the library’s standard collection. He had a lot of old books, the ones bound in leather and with pages that seemed handcut; Eddie wouldn’t be surprised if some of those were actually handwritten on vellum. Those books were the reason - or one of the reasons - Mike had brought them back to his home, after the… Eddie hesitated in his own thoughts. He wasn’t quite sure how to describe the experience of seeing a spider with the head of a baby doll come crawling out of a fortune cookie. Or a fucking live bat, for that matter. Hallucinations, it couldn’t be anything else. Only, they had all hallucinated the same thing and Eddie was pretty sure that was quite uncommon when it came to these kind of concoctions of the brain. More importantly, the waitress had looked at them like they were crazy when they hightailed it out of the restaurant. She didn’t seem to think there was anything amiss. 

It had started out relatively innocent too, Stan cracked open his fortune cookie and paled when he read the little slip of paper. His reaction was so intense that all other conversations stopped and everybody looked at him. Ben, sitting next to him, had been the one to carefully take the fortune from Stan’s hand and read it aloud. 

_ I guess Stan couldn’t cut it. _

At first they marveled about the fact that Stan got a personalised message in a fortune cookie. Not only that, what were the odds that he picked the right one from the platter?! Only, Stan wasn’t marveled, he was devastated, almost crumbling from the inside. So much so, that Richie reached out over the table and gently took hold of his lower arm. He didn’t have to say anything before Stan spoke up, a toneless whisper that nevertheless seemed to reverberate around the table.  
“I wanted to cut my wrists.”

Of all of them, Richie and Mike seemed to understand best what Stan meant, although Eddie could make an educated guess when he thought about Stan’s dogged reluctance to return to Derry. He was fine with the idea of a reunion, after a little hesitation, but he was the one that kept suggesting other locations. Anything but Derry.

And then the other fortune cookies cracked open and their dinner turned into a scene from a horror movie. They booked it out of the restaurant and into the parking lot, were nothing seemed out of order. For a long moment Eddie had clutched his arm, convinced that it was broken, but that turned out to be nothing but a memory. Another memory that had Richie in it. 

He returned to the living room, where everyone was more or less where he left them. Stan stood by the window, looking out in the dark. He likely didn’t see anything but his own reflection in the window pane. Ben and Beverly sat together on one of the couches, closer than would be considered just friendly. Richie sat on the other couch, his elbow leaning on the armrest and his hand in his hair. He’d had his hands in his hair almost the whole time, making it stand up to all sides in his stress. Mike stood next to him, arranging some old books and papers on the coffee table. There was also some old clay pot on the table, carved with faded imagery. Bill was in the tattered Chesterfield armchair closest to the door and Eddie sat down on one of those wide armrests instead of going to sit in the free spot next to Richie. They locked eyes for a moment, though both of them looked away after a short second.

Stan turned around from his spot by the window, his gaze locked on Mike. “It’s back, isn’t it?”

The dark man nodded solemnly. “I’ve had my suspicions for a while now. I wasn’t sure of it until this week.”

“We defeated It when we were 13,” Ben said, apparently the fastest in working through the onslaught of unsettling memories that Stan’s words evoked in them. “He can’t be back.”

Next to him, Beverly was shaking her head. Not at the fact that a murderous clown from their childhood had returned, but at Ben’s words. “We didn’t defeat It. Not completely.”

“We promised to return if It did.” Bill leaned his elbows on his knees, rubbing a thumb over the inside of his hand. The same hand were Eddie now also had the urge to scratch at the thin red line of an old scar. One he never remembered getting, though now he did remember their blood oath. 

“I know how to defeat It,” Mike said, picking up one of the papers of the table. He was jostled to the side by Richie who made a sudden run to the bathroom, clamping his hand over his mouth.

When Richie came back some time later, his face white as a sheet and with a sheen of sweat, Mike and Bill were having a serious discussion about some old native ritual that Mike believed would stop It. Something about old bonds and trust. Honestly, Eddie only heard half of it. All he did was stare at Richie, one childhood memory after the other marching through his head. 

“So,” Richie said, awkwardly rubbing a hand across his cheek and neck. Eddie wanted to replace that hand with his own and he quickly looked away to press down on that thought. “We’re gonna kill It, huh?”

“I believe we can defeat him,” Mike answered. “For real, this time.”

“But we have to do it together,” Bill added, looking specifically at Stan. 

It took a long moment, but eventually Stan nodded. So did Ben and Beverly, determined looks on their faces. Eddie wasn’t too sure if he was on board with this. Going after a powerful entity didn’t really sound like a safe thing to do. Myra would have a fit if she knew about this. 

“You with me, Eds?” Richie asked quietly, looking at him from a few feet away. 

Eddie swallowed hard and nodded. He was scared and unsure, but he would do this. With Richie.

His friend suddenly clapped his hands. “Well, I don’t know about you guys, but I’m gonna get drunk!”  
Ben tried to remark that getting drunk the night before they were going to slay a monster probably wasn’t the best idea, but Stan had already unearthed two bottles of whiskey from one of the bookshelves. 

Holding out a lemonade glass filled with three fingers of whiskey in a toast, Eddie looked at Richie.  _ I kissed you for the first time when we were drunk,  _ he thought, while his friend called out a toast about killing childhood fears.

Drinking your whiskey from a lemonade glass was a guaranteed way to get drunk. He’d took a seat again on the wide armrest of the Chesterfield, but Eddie was well on his way to needing some more support in order to keep sitting up. Maybe he could slide in the seat next to Bill. Or more likely, on Bill’s lap, because the chair’s seat cushion wasn’t that big. Or he could work up the nerve to go sit on the couch with Richie, that spot was still free, as Mike was leaning against the window sill next to Stan.

Instead of thinking about what would happen tomorrow, Eddie’s mind was stuck in the past. He thought about his first kiss, his first real kiss. It was with Richie.  _ Of course it was,  _ his mind supplied emphatically as if he was having a conversation in his own head. Him and Beverly had arranged for a six pack of beer and a bottle of fruit wine, some way or another. There were four of them, sitting by the quarry. Richie, Beverly, Stan and Eddie. He couldn’t remember why the others weren’t there, usually the Losers Club were a one package deal. But he was there and Richie. They were sitting together, Richie’s arm wrapped around Eddie’s shoulders. And then they were kissing, tongues tasting bitter and sweet at the same time from the alcohol.

He tries to remember if they became boyfriends after that, but he can’t remember calling Richie that. Richie was just  _ Richie.  _ It was Richie and Eddie,  _ EddieandRichie _ . Richie was just  _ there _ .

And now he was over there, on the other side of the coffee table, wrapped up in a conversation with Ben and Beverly. Eddie tried to listen in, get a sense of what they were talking about. Belatedly, he realised that Bill was also taking part of the same conversation and maybe he was too? It was hard to stay in the present when his mind was constantly taking him back to the past.

“I’ve got to call Audra,” Bill said, pushing himself up from the chair. “In case…” 

And that was what they were talking about, wasn’t it? If they had people they had to talk to before they… In case…

“Don’t you have a significant other to call, Eddie?” Ben asked, his cheeks rosy from the liquor. 

Eddie sighed. “I suppose I’d have to call my wife.”

Richie coughed, his drink going down the wrong pipe apparently. He hit himself in the chest a few times and then rasped out: “You’re married? Like, to a woman?”

“No!” Eddie exclaimed, before checking himself. “I mean yes. No, I mean no.”

Richie stared at him with a look that was impossible for Eddie to decipher right now. Not when he was tangled in his own words and thoughts.

“We’re not married.  _ Yet _ .”

“You’re engaged?” Beverly asked, sounding intrigued. “I didn’t see a ring.”

Eddie lifted his hand to look at it, as if there was supposed to be a ring and he forgot about it. “No, she uh… She… Myra didn’t want a ring. Thought it was a waste of money.” He stammered to defend himself, to defend his future wife when he saw the judging looks on his friend’s faces, untampered because of the alcohol. “It’s not… She’s not… It wasn’t supposed to be a long engagement.”

“Huh.” Beverly took a swig of her drink before she gestured with her glass between Richie and Eddie. “I always thought you and Richie… I mean, I didn’t  _ always _ think that, you know, because of the whole memory loss thing, but…” She shook her head as if to give her thoughts a good shake. “But I remember thinking it  _ before _ , you know, when we were younger. You and Richie were attached at the hip, I guess I always thought you’d marry.”

“They did.” The words cut through the room before Eddie or Richie could react.

“W-what?” Richie’s eyes were big behind his glasses, even though he didn’t have those old coke bottle type of glasses anymore that made him look like he was surprised all the time during their younger years.

Stan smirked wryly. “You got married, I mean.”

For Eddie it suddenly clicked. He stood up from his perch on the armrest, wobbling slightly and pointed his finger at Stan. “You! You send in those papers!”

“What papers?” Richie was standing now too, looking between him and Stan. “What papers are you talking about? What is this?”

Next to Stan, the frown on Mike’s face slowly morphed into a smile. He let out a breathy laugh. “Oh my god, I can’t believe it. You officialised their marriage certificate?”

“I only had to put a stamp on it and send it in,” Stan offered. “It wasn’t like it was hard.”

“Why the fuck would you do that?!” Eddie yelled, almost beside himself from anger. He couldn’t believe that Stan of all people had made that joke of a wedding official. Because that’s what it was, right? They were young, they were drunk and for whatever reason they were celebrating new legislation in a weirdly engaged manner.

Stan shrugged, smiling sardonically. “I was best man, it was my responsibility to make sure things were in order.”


	13. Put a ring on it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch + a small amount of gore.

He’s married. He’s fucking  _ married _ . And he has been for almost twenty years now. Without knowing. Without remembering.

It feels weird to be thinking about that when they’re staring up at the Neibolt House, about to go in and kill a demonic clown. Richie tries to think about that particular task in as clear words as possible, to make it sound a little more normal; although there is nothing even remotely normal about it. He’s also about 99 percent sure that he’s about to see the room from his dreams in there; maybe even with the doll-filled coffins. He shudders when he thinks about seeing himself in one of those coffins.

Someone gave his bicep a short squeeze. It felt reassuring. Richie looked to the side to see Eddie looking up at the house, face grim and determined. His eyes darted to the side for a moment, catching Richie’s gaze. Eddie pulled one corner of his mouth up in a wry smile, as if to acknowledge their little pact.  
They will talk about all of this in detail  _ after  _ killing the clown. Turns out, trying to talk about it while being drunk and flabbergasted and mad isn’t very productive. They had yelled at each other, Richie mad at Eddie for not telling him and Eddie mad at… Well,  _ everybody _ , it seemed. Mad at Stan for sending in the wedding documentation that made everything official, mad at Mike for conducting the ceremony, mad at Bill  _ and _ Stan for being their witnesses, mad at all of his friends for allowing them to get married in the first place. And mad at Richie for being married to him at all. It was frustrating to get yelled at like that, but somewhere deep down Richie understood that Eddie was feeling just as confused and maybe betrayed as he was about finding out they had been married for so long without knowing it.  
Because that’s what it felt like for Richie. After the initial shock washed away - and he’d sobered up considerably - the main emotion that was left behind was betrayal. He’d married his best friend, the friend he’d been in love with for years apparently, and then totally forgot about all of it not even months later when he went to college. He was happy and that was stolen from him by some freaky entity that held his hometown in a vice. 

He was totally gonna kill that clown now.

There was no room filled with coffins this time. Richie couldn’t help but check every room they came across, pushed by some morbid fascination. The house was as old and damp as in his dreams, only there were no dolls in coffins to scare the shit out of him. The house itself did that already, to be honest. The house and the knowledge of who - or what - exactly they were looking for here. Being back in Derry, realising It was back too, lifted the veil from all the forgotten memories. They’re horrifying, truly. Richie can’t wrap his head around how brave they all were at 13, fighting the clown for the first time. And now he’s about to do it again. Fucking crazy. He should be in therapy. Really expensive therapy, because he couldn’t imagine unloading all this shit on some unexpecting poor woman who usually just had people with depressions or daddy issues on her couch.

Mike had sent them all over town, collecting artifacts from their childhood. They were to be used in some old Native American ritual, one that they should perform inside the monster’s lair. If you asked Richie, that was fucking asking for trouble.   
They’d run into enough trouble already, the bandage on the cheek that was on the side of Eddie’s face that Richie couldn’t see at the moment, was a testament to that. He’d fucking took a knife to the face when he encountered their childhood bully. A person that was supposed to be locked up in the madhouse, according to Mike.   
Richie closed his fist around the old arcade token he had in his jacket pocket. Henry Bowers bullied him for being ‘a fag’ long before Richie himself knew he was gay. One vivid version of those memories took place at the arcade, one of the reasons he’d chosen to go there. The token didn’t represent merely bad memories, there were a lot of good memories at the arcade too. Memories he shared with his friends.

They found their way to the basement, which was more of a cavern than a regular basement, really. Who had their basement connected to the underground network of sewer pipes anyway?  
Richie and his friends looked on as Mike set up all the steps for the ritual, including the burning of their artifacts. The rock Mike brought himself, the old pack of cigarettes Beverly retrieved from its hiding place in her former home, Eddie’s asthma inhaler, all of it. They chanted the lines Mike taught them and, fuck, it really seemed to work for a minute. Those fucking deadlights appeared, went into the pottery and that seemed to be it. 

There’s no time to feel relief though, because the lid on the clay pot moved and raised and a bright red balloon grew out of it. 

Richie couldn’t find it in himself to curse when the red balloon revealed a giant clown with spider like legs. If spider legs had blades on the end of them. Fucking  _ hell _ . There were no curse words bad enough for this type of shit.  
“Mike! Goddammit man! You told us this would work!” Richie backed away from the knives for legs that moved around restlessly. Or gleefully, because that fucking clown seemed to enjoy himself thoroughly. 

“What do we do now?” Eddie hissed urgently, somewhere to Richie’s right. No matter how much they’d yelled at each other the night before, they still kept close, never letting the other out of their sight. At least, that was the way it was for Richie; and it wasn’t like Eddie was trying to avoid him either. They had shit to work through, other shit than dealing with an alien monstrosity. Real world shit. And Richie was  _ so _ ready to work on it.

The members of the Losers Club fixed their frightened faces on Mike and Bill, who had took on the leader roles in a natural way earlier. Yet Bill didn’t tell them anything else than to look out and Mike’s face was so devoid of any hope that Richie couldn’t  _ not  _ call him out on it.  
“You knew this, right?! You knew it wouldn’t work!”

Mike stammered, trying to explain why he’d thought it would work even though it’d never worked before. Those Native Americans that performed the ritual were killed by It instead of the other way around. Of course, because how else could It still be here right now?  
“They didn’t  _ truly _ believe it would work!” Mike pleaded one last time.

It’s grotesque head bobbed above them, grinning down on them with a toothy smile. Richie fought back the urge to vomit up his never consumed breakfast. “If I didn’t see It right now, I wouldn’t believe this fucking monster existed. But we all see It now, don’t we?!” Richie’s voice cracked in stress and fear. “I  _ have _ to believe we can kill It, otherwise, what’s the fucking point of being here?”

They  _ had _ to kill It. They just had to. He wanted to talk to Eddie. He wanted to be with his friends. He wanted to make new memories, make up for all the lost years. 

The monster must have sensed their hardening resolve, because it suddenly lashed out with its sharp legs, making them scramble away in fear of being slashed with the blades. “Eddie! Look out!” Richie yelled when he saw how close one of the blades came to spearing his friend to the ground. 

Eddie narrowly avoided the blade and Richie only had time to see that the monster now fixed its attention on him, before all sounds suddenly fell away.

_ It was a nice night. No clouds to hide the stars and hardly any wind to cool down the lingering heat of the day. They were all sitting on bales of hay just inside the wide open doors of the large barn on the Hanlon property. Mike was the only one of them who was old enough to legally buy alcohol and they frequently made use of his adult status.   
_ _ Richie rested his back against the stacked bales behind him, his arm wrapped loosely around Eddie’s waist. His friend nursed a beer, listening in to their friends’ conversation and adding to it every now and then. Richie wanted to contribute too, but he was banned from it after his friends determined his suggestions to be either too racy or too crude to incorporate in a wedding ceremony. So instead he focused his attention on the familiar press of Eddie’s body against his side. He’d slipped his hand underneath the hem of his shirt, brushing his thumb back and forth against the warm skin he found there. _

_ Mike was supposed to perform the wedding of his cousin and her soon-to-be husband next weekend. The ceremony was held on his parent’s farm and Mike had went and gotten ordained by the Universal Life Church to be able to perform his favourite cousin’s wedding. He wanted the ceremony to be more personal than the standard ones, so he was trying to write up a more custom made speech while still incorporating the legally required lines. His friends were helping him, well, everyone but Richie.  _

_ After a while they had drafted a speech that they were all satisfied with. “I should practice this,” Mike said, looking over the notepad in his hand. “Make sure I can do it from the top of my head next weekend.” _

_ “You could perform it in front of a mirror?” Ben suggested. He had made the most helpful suggestions when they were drawing up the text. Richie thought about seventy percent of it was Ben’s input. _

_ “Or we could practice it right now, you know,” Richie offered. He figured he was allowed to talk again now the draft version of the speech was finished.  _

_ Eddie groaned and elbowed his side. “We are not playing pretend, we’re too old for that.” _

_ Richie pulled his friend a little tighter to his side and gave him a friendly shake. “Come on, Eds, live a little. You’re never too old to play pretend.” _

_ “It’s a good idea, actually,” Ben piped up. “We could try out the speech before an audience.”  _

_ “Kinda stupid when the audience helped write the speech. Defeats the purpose.” Richie gave Eddie another shake for his spoilsport tendencies. And a wet peck on his cheek for good measure. _

_ Beverly jumped to her feet. “Let’s do it!” She put her hands in her sides and raised her chin defiantly. “But I’m not playing the bride!” _

_ “You can be the flower girl,” Richie grinned and jumped to his feet too. “And Ben can carry the rings!” _

_ Beverly looked around her, searching for something. “We can pick some flowers in the yard. But what will we use for rings?” _

_ Richie’s face lit up with a sudden idea and he rushed over to the spot where he’d left his backpack earlier. He dug into it with fervor, spurred on by the radiating warmth that spread in his belly from his idea. In the background, Mike was warning his friend not to raid his mother’s garden for flowers.  
_ _ His hand found the plastic wrapping he was searching for and Richie quickly dug it up from under the extra sweatshirt he had packed for when it would get colder. Eddie would probably end up wearing it instead of him, as usual.  _

_ He made his way back to where Eddie was still sitting on the bale of hay, watching his friend’s endeavours to put together a make believe wedding in the spur of the moment. The boy saw him coming, yet he still reared back in surprise when Richie dropped to one knee in front of him.  
_ _ He held out the ring pop he’d unearthed from his backpack, a leftover from a trip to the candy store some days earlier. No matter that he was now almost 19 years old, he still liked to indulge on candy.   
_ _ “Edward Kaspbrak,” he started, eyes full of glee. “Will you marry me?”   
_ _ His words hung in the air as Eddie stared at him wide eyed. It was not often that Richie managed to have his friend at a loss for words; Eddie usually was a perfect match for Richie’s trashmouth.   
_ _ He shuffled forwards a bit on his knees so he could catch Eddie’s hand where it was twitching nervously in his lap. “Eddie, my love,” he sing-songed, “will you make me the happiest man on Earth and accept my hand in marriage?” _

_ That brought Eddie back to reality a bit. “That’s not how you say that,” he snapped, though his words didn’t carry a lot of bite. He pushed Richie’s hand with the ring pop away. “Don’t mess with me.” _

_ And  _ oh _. Richie would normally do that, wouldn’t he? Mess around and make a joke out of everything. It usually worked wonderfully, making light of heavy situations. Like when kissing Eddie because he simply felt like it suddenly felt too serious, too real. Or now, when he asked his friend to marry him in a make believe wedding, when they both felt like this could be the real deal. Richie knew he wasn’t the only one who felt strangely elated when they heard the news yesterday. Gay people could get married now. Getting married to Eddie was now a real possibility. It was unnerving. For no matter how they acted in private or in the presence of their friends, it wasn’t anything official. It just  _ was _. Richie and Eddie. EddieandRichie. _

_ So, he messed with Eddie. He crawled even closer, pushing his way in between Eddie’s knees and putting his hands on either side of Eddie’s hips. His friend leaned back, but only just enough to be able to look Richie in the eyes. It was encouraging enough, Richie decided.   
_ _ “Come on, Eds,” he whispered semi-seductively. Richie didn’t believe he could be truly seductive if his life depended on it. “We could consume the wedding afterwards. I bet that hay loft over there hasn’t seen some action in years.” _

_ “Oh my god,” Eddie exclaimed and pushed him backwards. “I can’t believe you!” He crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked away. _

_ Richie smiled widely, he knew Eddie was purposely avoiding his eyes to refrain from laughing. If he looked closely he could see how Eddie’s shoulders trembled with repressed laughter. He held the ring up so Eddie could see it. “What do-ya say Eds? Shall we put a ring on it?” _

“Yes!”

That was Eddie’s voice. Richie felt like he was swimming inside his own head, but he was pretty sure he heard his friend calling him. 

“-ichie! Rich! Wake up! I did it!” 

He opened his eyes to see Eddie leaning over him. The floor beneath him was hard, wet and bumpy. When did he lay down on the floor of the cavern? 

“I killed It! I threw a fence post at It’s head and he went down!” Eddie helped Richie sit up, babbling a hundred miles an hour. “You were caught in the deadlights. I had to do something! So I just picked up that piece of fence and threw it. I hit It right in the head!”

Eddie was so endearing in his triumph. Richie couldn’t help but reach out with his hand and touch Eddie’s cheek over the bandage. “You did good, Eds.”

“Don’t call me -” 

The next word out of Eddie’s mouth wasn’t intelligible. It was lost in the wet gurgle of someone who gets his lungs skewered. “Eddie!” Richie shouted, catching the slumping form of his friend - his  _ husband _ \- in his arms. “Eddie! No!”


	14. Spouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It sucks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch half way through the chapter.

Divorce papers. In duplicate. All neatly initialled at the bottom of each page. Two sets. One for him, one for Eddie. 

Richie didn’t think he would ever see this kind of papers with his own name on it; first, middle and last name. No, that’s not entirely true. Richie was always pretty much convinced that if he ever married, it would end in divorce sooner rather than later. For that matter, seeing them only after nearly twenty years of - oblivious - married life must mark some personal record, right?

At first, Richie was offended by the stacks of paper neatly held together by a fancy clip with the logo of a New York based law firm. They found them in search of Eddie’s documentation, on request of the local authorities. Bill handed them to him with a weird look on his face. “I think you should take a look at this.”

And Richie did. He took one look at the papers and then tossed them across the room. 

No fancy clip was able to hold the papers together anymore. The room was littered with papers with the letters E. K. in a little scrawl in the corner. 

Some time later Richie collected them messily, not paying attention to order, only to get them out of people’s way. Many of the papers crumpled up against his chest as he gathered them in his arms. It didn’t matter. There wasn’t much that mattered anyway.

Nearly twenty years ago he married his best friend underneath a starry sky in the presence of his friends, their spur of the moment vows sealed with a kiss and a red ring pop on Eddie’s finger. 

Eddie was his best friend. No, he was  _ more _ . Eddie was the first person Richie fell in love with,  _ really _ in love. He was in almost all of the memories that came back when he returned to the town where he’d lived all through his child and teenage years.  
Even now Richie still felt bursting at the seams with refound feelings, memories and emotions. When Eddie first called him, slivers of memories trickled into his awareness. Little by little he was reminded of his friend, the one that was this other part of a whole. This part that Richie never realised before he missed. He remembered his other friends too, but none of them held the significance that Eddie had. And then, when he’d seen him in the restaurant… 

It was too much.

And at the same time not enough.

Eddie knew they were married and wanted to terminate the marriage. He’d instructed his lawyer to draw up the divorce papers even before he’d contacted Richie. That was the reason he called Richie, he understood that now. Eddie wanted to file for divorce and he needed Richie’s signature for it.  
Some part of him wished that Eddie had sent him the papers through his agent. Made it as impersonal as possible. Maybe then he wouldn’t be such a mess.

Stan was the one who pointed out how meticulous Eddie had been. Every detail was accounted for. This was not some run-of-the-mill divorce, this shit was tailored to the last word. Eddie had wavered every claim to Richie’s assets, even though he technically had a right to half of everything. This was some sort of a reversed prenup, carefully splitting up each person’s affairs. Stan was equally careful in smoothing out the papers and putting them together in the right order again.

Richie was somewhat touched by all the work that was put in these divorce papers. Sure, Eddie had instructed his lawyer to do the work, but it was all intended to make sure Eddie wouldn’t get a dime of Richie’s money. And on top of that he had to lay down a considerable sum for his lawyers fee. Richie might have googled the name of the firm during one of his sleepless nights; they had an office in Manhattan. A big one. That fancy paperclip suddenly didn’t seem so fancy anymore.

During one of those sleepless nights Richie also came to the conclusion that he understood why Eddie wanted a divorce. It didn’t seem fair to continue a marriage that none of them had any knowledge of. Besides, Eddie had a new person to get married to. A woman.   
The thing just was that Richie hadn’t seen him mention her once without looking constipated. He hadn’t mentioned her during their phonecalls  _ before _ the reunion either; or not to Richie’s recollection anyway. You’d think the woman you were going to marry in a short while would make up a big part of your everyday conversations, right? If not the woman herself, then at least the preparations that came with planning a marriage. More importantly, Richie was a big obstacle on the road to their wedding. You’d think you wanted to get that out of the way as soon as possible if you were looking forward to marry your significant other. Maybe it was selfish, but Richie kept entertaining the thought that Eddie wasn’t all that eager to marry his girlfriend. And if he also thought that maybe Eddie was even less eager after he reconnected with Richie, well, nobody was there to stop him.

It would be nice to be able to hear Eddie’s opinion on things, though…

***

When he woke up, it wasn’t all at once. It’s gradually, in bits and pieces. One of those times he nearly choked on something they pulled out of his throat. A voice told him that it was normal, instructed him to take shallow, even breaths until the feeling subsided. He wanted to tell that voice to go fuck themselves, but maybe, you know, after he was done choking. There’s pain too. Dull and continuous, getting sharper over time before it dulled out again and the whole cycle started over. 

The fact that he was in a hospital didn’t surprise him. Neither did all the monitors next to his bed, or the IV’s connected to his arms. The words out of the doctor’s mouth weren’t all too surprising either. He was missing some important bits and pieces here and there, like half of his left lung and most of his spleen. Broken ribs too, or rather completely cut in half and then put back together by skilled surgeons. Certain movements would give him pain for the rest of his life, the doctor predicted. Eddie believed him, through his injuries he could already feel how his body was not what it used to be.   
All of that was surprisingly easy to take in stride. His body was broken, but he was still here. He didn’t expect that. 

“We’ll be sure to call your husband to tell him the good news that you’re awake,” the doctor said right before he went on with his rounds.

Eddie didn’t expect  _ that _ either.

Richie was a crying mess when he sat beside Eddie’s bed not an hour later. Every time he wiped the tears from his eyes and tried to look at Eddie, he broke down crying again. It was a wonder he didn’t end up puking his guts out too, the man was that shaken up.

Eddie waited patiently until Richie calmed down again. Not that there was much to do for him anyway, sitting up against the pillows was an effort on its own. He placed his hand on Richie’s and watched him break down again, although his friend tried to apologize for his behaviour through his tears. Eddie gave his hand a squeeze to let him know it was ok.   
His eyes wandered around the room, wondering which hospital he was in. The metal rack that held his IV bags had a sticker on it. He could read ‘Massachusetts General Ho-’.   
Eddie shook Richie’s arm, getting his attention. Talking was a bitch, but he managed to ask why he was in Massachusetts after only two tries. 

“Oh, yeah, Boston,” Richie answered, still sniffling. He grabbed some tissues from the box that was on the bedside table to blow his nose. “They moved you to Massachusetts General Hospital because they have some of the best pulmonologists here. Doctor Gokhale operated on you. Nice guy.” Richie nodded his approval.  
They talked some more, though it took several conversations spread out over multiple days before Eddie had a somewhat clear picture of what happened to him and how he ended up in the hospital. Richie found it difficult to talk about and Eddie’s short term memory was a little shaky. Together, they managed, though.

In the end, it didn’t really matter how he got here. The most important thing was that he was still here, more or less in one piece. And he was not alone, his friends were with him. Richie visited him daily in the hospital - he’d rented a small studio not far from the hospital - and the other Losers texted or made video calls.

It was not until a week after waking up that Eddie first thought about Myra. That thought made his heart monitor spike so much that a nurse came in to check on him. He called Richie on the phone next to his bed, without realising that it would be more direct to call Myra himself.

“Hey Eds, how’s it hanging?” He sounded like he was eating something.

“Does Myra know?”

Richie was silent for a long moment. “Yes, she does,” he said then. “We uh… Bill called her.” He continued to explain how they had a little trouble contacting her, because Eddie’s phone and wallet got lost in the collapsed caverns beneath Neibolt House. “She’s been to Boston, you know, visiting you. The day after you got out of surgery.”

“Oh,” Eddie breathed. After surgery it took eleven days before he woke up properly. They’d tried to raise him sooner, yet he was too unstable at first to go without ventilatory support. 

“Do you want… I can call her? Or you can do that, I mean, if you want.” 

Eddie was given a choice he suddenly didn’t want to make. “She’s gonna be so mad,” he lamented.

Richie huffed out a laugh. “Yeah. No shit. She’s scary, man. And I thought your mother was a force to be reckoned with.”

“Oh my god, mother…” 

Again, Bill had taken care of contacting his family. His mother was very shocked, of course, but according to Richie she was actually quite pleased that Eddie was moved to Boston where he would receive the best care. 

At Eddie’s question why Richie was visiting him daily instead of Myra, his friend chuckled warmly. “Only spouses are allowed to visit in the ICU.”


	15. Ever after

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone lives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> POV switch.

Eddie recovered slowly but steady. Every day he got a little better until the day neared that he would be discharged from the hospital. Richie dreaded that day from the beginning, because even though he wanted his friend to get better, he kind of liked the hospital bubble, especially after Eddie woke up.  
Richie walked the familiar route through the halls of the hospital to Eddie’s room. He came here every day, the hospital had almost become his second home. Or his first home, because the little furnished studio he rented felt less like home than Eddie’s room. The room was shared with three other patients in long term care. Richie liked to shoot the shit with them, lighten up the place a bit.  
He also loved talking to Eddie. They talked about almost everything, from their childhood in Derry to their adult lives. Anything and everything, except the fact that they were married. Oh, it came up every now and then, mostly when doctors came to discuss things concerning Eddie’s health and Richie sat there as a second set of ears in case Eddie missed something. After all, he was the spouse, so he was expected to be there.

Now, he  _ had _ to bring it up. He wanted to mention the subject for a week already, but he’d chickened out every time. In fact, Beverly gave him a stern talking to last night for avoiding it yet again. Today, he’d brought the manilla envelope that contained the divorce papers. 

And  _ boy _ , did that work. Eddie paled visibly when he saw the envelope and he kept staring at it like it would catch fire when Richie put it down at the foot of the bed.  
He pulled the chair to the bed and sat down, nerves tingling in his stomach. “You er… you wanna talk about that?”

“No.” Eddie nearly pouted, it was almost comical to see how reluctant he was to broach the subject. Well, there were two in that boat.

“Me neither.” Richie took a deep breath. Beverly would surely yell at him if he didn’t push through. “But I think we have to. You know. At some point.”

Eddie’s shoulders sagged. “I know.”

And for a long while that was all that was being said. Richie noticed how Eddie’s roommates purposely ignored their presence, focusing their attention on their book or the tv. For all they knew, Eddie and Richie were a married couple. And technically, they really were. And all married couples fight sometimes, or have to talk about subjects they would rather avoid. 

“I like being married to you,” Richie blurted out, startling Eddie into a faint blush. It was good to see the extra colour on his cheeks. “When you… you know,” Richie made an aborted movement with his hand, “I was able to help you, even though I am not a doctor. I could sign documents, I answered all the questions. That list with medical information you keep with your passport was very helpful, by the way.”   
It was one of the things they found when they were going through Eddie’s stuff, along with a copy of their marriage certificate, the divorce papers and an alarmingly extensive collection of medication. Half of which the doctors didn’t even keep administering after Eddie was admitted to the hospital. And right now, all his meds were switched out for medication that he needed for his current condition. Eddie still had to take a lot of pills, yet Richie was fairly sure it was less than he used to take and a lot more effective.  
“You saved me from the deadlights,” Richie continued, swallowing hard. “It was nice to be able to do something back.”

“You already did that when you got me out of there,” Eddie said, voice equally thick.

He noticed how the man in the bed closest to Eddie, mr. Rooseveldt, peeked at them from behind his book. The general story about Eddie’s injuries was a one-sided car accident, he could imagine how their current topic would pique someone’s interest.   
“Anyway,” Richie glossed over it. “If we weren’t, you know, married, there would have been someone else sitting at your bedside. And…” He paused for a moment, feeling his face heat up with what he was about to say. “I like that it’s been me.”

“I like that too.”   
Eddie’s quiet, but clear admission lifted a weight of Richie’s shoulders that he hadn’t been completely aware of. The sudden loss of it made him giddy. “I almost thought you would pull the til death do us part thing on me. Make me a widower. Didn’t seem fair when I didn’t know I was married until, what? Two months ago?”

“Widowers are popular with the ladies, they say,” Eddie answered, latching on to Richie’s heightened mood. 

Richie waggled his eyebrows. “Eds, we both know I’m not really a ladies man.”

“No? What’s your type?” Eddie almost forgot to tag “And don’t call me Eds!” at the end of that question.

“Oh, I don’t know, bedridden, missing half a lung but still having enough air for an angry rant every now and then.”

Eddie swatted at him with his hand. “I’m not bedridden!” He couldn’t exactly hide the smile on his face, although he tried to look stern.

Richie swatted back and they slapped their hands back and forth for a bit until he finally caught Eddie’s hand and held it on top of the comforter. He watched his friend fondly. The fear of losing Eddie had cemented his refound love, bringing it from his memories into the present. Richie loved Eddie, simple as that.

Eddie smiled at Richie, warm and fond, before he moved his gaze to the fat envelope by his feet. “I don’t want to marry Myra,” he said quietly but not unsure. “I don’t think we’re right for each other. We would make the other unhappy, I think maybe I already was unhappy. I just didn’t realise, I thought that was just my life.”

“You deserve so much mure,” Richie pressed. “You deserve to be happy. It doesn’t even have to be with me.” He smirked self consciously. “Although I very much hope it will be with me.”  
When Eddie squeezed his hand he squeezed back, grateful for the silent acknowledgement. “My offer still stands. I would love it if you came back to LA with me, whether it is as my friend or as my husband.” He grinned, trying to keep things light. “Or both, of course. The possibilities are endless.”  
He’d offered Eddie to stay in his guestroom to recover further after he got discharged from the hospital. In addition, there were several hospitals in LA that doctor Gokhale would be happy to refer them to. The man had already said as much when he heard that Richie lived in LA and assumed Eddie lived there too. Bottomline, Richie just didn’t want to part from Eddie, he wanted to keep him close. 

“The weather is nice there,” Eddie mused. “No cold winters like in New York.” 

“Less risk of pneumonia,” Richie confirmed, very much liking the direction in which this conversation was going. 

“The UCLA Medical Center is ranked in the top three when it comes to pulmonology.” Of course he’d researched that, Eddie wouldn’t be Eddie if he didn’t.   
“Hey, Rich, will you get my bag?”

The sudden change of topic baffled Richie for a moment, yet he obediently dug up Eddie’s overnight bag from the bottom of the narrow closet behind him. Most of Eddie’s clothes were placed neatly inside the closet, since he’d been staying here for so long. The bag was empty, safe for some random things that Eddie didn’t need during his stay. Richie actually didn’t have a clue what was still in it. He placed the bag in Eddie’s lap, curious to see what he wanted with it. 

Eddie pulled some toy from the bag, white and brown plastic encased in a dented cardboard wrapping. He gently pushed the box into its original shape before turning it to show Richie the front. It was a doll-sized toilet with a brown turd sitting it. The poop had eyes and a laughing mouth and on top of it sat a golden crown. ‘King of the porcelain throne’ it read above the toilet.   
When he saw Richie’s confused expression, Eddie blustered. “I know it’s stupid. It was a stupid idea. I wanted… I looked up what kind of gift was customary for twenty years. It was porcelain. And I wasn’t gonna give you dinner plates!” He looked more confident now, in a dogged way. Eddie pushed the toy in Richie’s hands. “So. Here. Happy anniversary.” 

Richie laughed. He laughed  _ so _ hard. Tears rolled down his face and his stomach ached. He laughed even more when he discovered the toilet made a flushing sound if you pushed the lever. Richie laughed until he couldn’t anymore, Eddie laughing with him.  
“Happy anniversary, Eds.”


End file.
